Eyes on the Enemy
by springinkerl
Summary: Part 2 of "Eyes on the Horizon". The Dragonborn has broken the bonds she has formed and fled the world and her past. But to escape a fate that is already sealed is impossible, and she will have to return, if only to fulfil her destiny. And perhaps to form her own future. F!Dovahkiin/Farkas
1. Resurrection

It was the day the bard came that I realised that the endless frost would make way for spring and that life would return.

Something was different that morning. Snowback's familiar weight on my feet was missing when I woke up, and the sun shone under my ledge, causing bright flecks to dance behind my lids. And it was accompanied by a breeze that for once didn't sting like needles on my bare skin. It was still cold, but it was a gentler cold, and it carried something with it that wasn't yet a scent, something sharp and invigorating and still held a promise. The hint of a promise of life returning. I heard the soft crackling of a fire and an even softer melody drafting into my half-slumber, and it made me smile.

For a moment. Until I opened my eyes, suddenly wide awake.

Outside a fire was burning merrily, a kettle boiling above it, and a man sat on an old fur with his back to me, legs crossed, a lute in his lap. A lute, and Snowback's head. Traitor.

He didn't even flinch when I pressed the tip of my dagger between his ribs, his fingers continuing to wander over the strings of his instrument, but he turned his head to me. Bright green, strangely innocent eyes, a smiling face under a thatch of curly white hair, crinkled from weather and laughter and age.

"Who are you?" My voice was raspy from disuse.

"Good morning, M'lady. Hope you don't mind? Your companion here," he fondled the dog behind his ears and was rewarded with a happy yelp, "invited me to rest for a moment. That's a beautiful spot you have here."

Of course I did mind, a dagger between his rips should have made that clear enough. Intruders weren't welcome. "Answer my question. Who are you?"

"Talsgar's the name, Talsgar the Wanderer people call me. Delighted to meet a kindred soul, M'lady."

Kindred soul? Was he insane? He could be glad that I didn't cut his throat first and asked later. But he wasn't afraid, not even a little bit. The cheerfulness never left his attitude, radiated from his eyes. No mocking, no teasing, no sarcasm, just contentment to be exactly where he was.

"You're not welcome. Snowback!" I pointed to my furs at the back of the ledge and made the sign to stay. At least he obeyed.

"You call him Snowback?" The man chuckled. "That's not very kind!"

"He just earned it. Stupid dog," I growled. I was confused. Puzzled. It had been so long since there had been someone else, since someone spoke to me, with me, I didn't know any more how to react with anything but scared anger. But it didn't impress him the slightest, and the amused, friendly smile never left his face, his fingers still dancing over the strings.

For a moment, only the soft tune was audible while our eyes were locked, his merry bright gaze never leaving my dark frown. Until I realised what it was that he played. Until I recognised the melody.

_"For the darkness has passed…"_

It hadn't passed, it was still there, all around me and rising through the numbness of my mind. Icut the strings with a single move.

"Leave," I hissed, "now, or I'll kill you."

He still didn't move, with the blade now pressed to his throat. I felt the fury boil within me, fury and hate and helpless fear of the demons I had locked away for so long now. He had no idea what it cost me to keep these locks shut close. I would not allow him to open them with a bloody _song_.

I nearly consumed myself in the attempt to stay calm and to steady my hand, heard my own teeth gnash and my heart hammer in the effort to suppress the violent shiver that ran through me. A thin red line appeared on the bard's neck. The smile never left his lips and his eyes.

"Go." More a sob than an order.

Slowly, very slowly, like facing a wounded predator, he put the lute away, laid it slowly beside him, stroking its body, caressing it despite my violent act. His eyes never leaving mine, he turned to face me completely. His fingers encircled my wrist carefully, moved it away from his neck, took the weapon out of my clenched grip. I didn't know why I let him.

"I'm sorry, M'lady." I wanted him to go, to vanish, to never have appeared here, and he stood up without a further word. But instead to leave, he took a mug, filled it with the contents of the kettle, brought it over to me and folded my hands around it. The brew smelled invigorating, of flowers and the fresh tips of newly sprouted herbs.

"Here. There's nothing better in the morning to make a bright day even brighter."

Instead to leave, like I had asked, pleaded, _begged_, he sat down again, across the fire, and looked at me, let the silence build. The silence I had savoured for so long, that had hidden me from the world and from myself, that had covered me like a cloak during these icy times. No sound, no word, no song, no voice. No thought that had to be expressed, no meaning. And suddenly, this silence got a new quality, now that there was somebody who shared it. Now that there was this _bard_ to share it.

I couldn't bear it any more. Not with him sitting there. It was mine. He didn't have the right to claim it.

"Why don't you just go?" The despair dripped from my words like honey.

He leant back against a log, folded his hands behind his head. An image of utter relaxation, as if he wanted to emphasise the upheaval raging in me.

"Because… don't you smell the air? This is a wonderful time and place to sing. Or to tell a story. It could make a story all on its own, our… encounter." That unquenchable smile morphed into a wide grin. He grabbed an empty pot, turned it upside down and placed it between his feet. The slow rhythm he started to drum was mesmerising, calming some of the turmoil he had caused.

"Nothing of me is worth a story."

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong! Everyone is worth a story! Only that sometimes, it needs a wandering minstrel to find the tale beneath the veil. Love and success, or pain and sorrow... always unique and always worth telling." His hands changed the rhythm, only slightly, but it held my attention. His attention was solely on me, though, and I cringed under this curious, searching gaze. "I always find the best tales when I don't look for them. I'm good at finding things, you know?"

"Some tales are better forgotten."

This man already looked as if he were at home, here, in _my camp_. He was dangerous, his threat to find my story and the way he took control. The revulsion against his presence had to be written into my face. And my fear, probably. His grin faded.

"No need to be afraid, friend. I will leave you alone. But you know, a story that wants to be told will always find someone to tell it. Someone will someday be at the right place at the right time and find what people are looking for."

He wrapped his destroyed lute into a waxed piece of cloth and slung it to his back, alongside with a knapsack that looked remarkably like the ones the Companions used. I clenched my teeth, looking mutely after him as he vanished into the forest without a further farewell, humming a soft melody. His words poisoned the silence long after he was gone.

* * *

It had taken me weeks to steel myself for this way, weeks full of doubt and hesitation and refusal. But as nature around me woke from its torpor, as the days became longer, slowly, barely noticeable and still undeniable, I woke with it. Against my will, but I couldn't change it – the world started to turn again, and when the very first green sprouts poked through the snow and the ice on my water bucket was only a thin layer in the morning, I knew I had to go with the change.

And still it was so incredibly hard to convince myself that my decision was right. Many little things had led to this move - Talsgar's visit and his words that I couldn't get out of my head. A hunter setting up his camp far too near to mine, a friendly, companionable man who brought me a freshly slain rabbit and a small flask of brandy to drink on good neighbourhood. And, as the last straw, the dragon circling above the trees for a whole day, his shouts echoing through the sky like mournful thunder. As if they were meant only for me. I couldn't hide forever.

Memories dwelled up, unasked for but relentless. The Greybeards, their wisdom, their understanding and their trust that I would be able to do what they had prepared me for, their confidence that had fuelled my determination to face whatever lay ahead. The peace of mind I had found in High Hrothgar. The first dragon at Whiterun's watchtower, the power of his soul. And, the hardest and gravest of them all, Kodlak's words when he offered me a home.

_"You need to learn some trust. You will make mistakes, but you'd have a chance to learn from them too. And you will become even stronger if you try."_

Even if he had been wrong in so many regards, this was still true. I had made more mistakes than I could count, and I had paid for them with everything that was precious to me, but I had also learned to trust myself. My strengths, and my weaknesses. I wasn't ready to deal with what I had lost, but I still lived, had survived all on my own. And now I had to go ahead, on the only path open to me. The camp I left behind was secured and stocked with some long lasting supplies, ready to use when I'd need it again.

My heart hammered in my chest when I came near Riverwood – less because of the decision I had made, but because of simple fear. The thought that I'd have to deal with _people_ again, that I'd have to talk and argue, cooperate and rely on them, it filled me with panic. But it was deep in the night, and at least I met no one until I stood on the doorstep of the Sleeping Giant Inn, a trembling hand clenched around the knob.

Only Snowback's reassuring presence made me open the door.

The woman sitting in the corner behind the counter looked weary, skimming absently through the pages of a book. She looked up when I entered, with a frown about the brazenness of a stranger with a dog to disturb her at such an ungodly hour. When she saw me, she arched an eyebrow at the figure in fur and rags, face hidden under a crude cowl.

"The kitchen is closed, and I don't give mead to beggars. Come back tomorrow. And leave the dog outside."

Delphine, charming as ever.

I couldn't expect anything else. But her eyes grew wide when I brushed the cowl into my neck, first impatience, then slow recognition and in the end utter disbelief in her features. It filled me with strange satisfaction.

"I'd nearly given up hope you'd come back, after all this time," she said finally.

"Do I have to expect a dagger to the chest?"

The corners of her mouth twitched. "No. You never had. I just need to talk to you."

"Well, I'm here now." I rubbed my neck nervously, not sure how to go on.

"And alone."

"Yes." It clenched my chest, this reference to my last visit, and I swallowed heavily. "I will listen to whatever you have to say. Under one condition." She looked astonished, as if it didn't befit me to make demands, but she slowly nodded.

"Speak, Dragonborn." I didn't mind the address. It was why I was here.

"You will tell nobody that I've been here. That you saw me. Especially none of the Companions."

She looked curious. "That won't be a problem. They'd certainly like to know... but for all I care, no need to involve more people than necessary." I was glad she didn't ask further, and I wouldn't satisfy her curiosity.

"Involve in… _what_?"

She didn't answer, instead went into the side room with the hidden stairs to her hideout. "I've guests who can wake up any time, we can't speak safely here."

Delphine locked the door behind me and lit the candles and lamps lined up on the walls. Leaning against the table, her face fell when she took me in in the bright light. "Divines, what happened to you?" Her face fell into a frown. "And when have you last eaten?"

I cringed under her scrutiny and shrugged. My stomach had stopped to announce its emptiness months ago. I could imagine that I looked pretty wrecked, but why would she care?

Delphine pointed at a cot in a corner. "You stay here. You will eat, bath and sleep before we do anything else."

"I'm fine," I said defiantly. I wouldn't take orders from her.

"No, you're not. In that state, you're useless. And you need armour and weapons, am I right?"

I blushed deeply and shrugged again. The blunt dagger and crude willow bow wouldn't do, of course. I hadn't considered that. But the last I wanted was to be dependent on her. Or in her debt.

"You don't... just tell me what you want," I muttered.

"I will." She gave me a dismissive gesture and hurried up the stairs, just to come back a few moments later, carrying a plate that was laden with bread, butter, cold meat, cheese and an apple.

The mere sight made my mouth water, and she recognised my longing gaze with a satisfied smirk. "Let's just pretend that I don't mind to keep the innocent innkeeper act up for a bit longer. And we have a day or two to let you rest."

"A day or two until what?" I asked suspiciously.

"Until we find out what causes the rising of the dragons."

I looked at her with wide eyes, the meal forgotten for the moment. "You _know_ what causes it?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "You won't give me that Thalmor nonsense again, will you?" They didn't have the power to bring the dragons back. Not even a single one, I knew that for a fact.

"It's not nonsense. But no… not right now, at least." She took place at the table and beckoned me to sit down opposite of her, shoving the plate in front of me. The first bite of fresh bread nearly brought tears to my eyes, just to settle like a rock in my stomach. "Not so greedy, Qhourian, or you'll eat it backwards. It's not hard to see that you haven't had a proper meal for some time."

I nodded. Some time, indeed, and I was glad that she didn't ask further. "So, what causes the rising of the dragons?" I asked, chewing carefully.

She unfolded a piece of parchment between us, and again I was dumbfounded. It was my map, the one I got from the Greybeards. Or one that was frighteningly similar to it, the signs marking the burial sites more than familiar.

"You know this, don't you?" she asked with a smirk. I nodded. "I don't have your connections, and I had to work hard for this – although you've been a great help with it." My questioning look caused a chuckle. "It's a transcription of the Dragonstone you brought Farengar from Bleak Falls Barrow."

"So, _you're_ his mysterious source of information?"

"Farengar has sources of information even I don't know about. But yes, we've worked together." She eyed me intently. "You have a similar map, and you've used it. And I have tracked your progress, visited some of the sites, asked around and drawn my conclusions… obviously something your Companions never thought of."

"They never thought of _what_?"

"That there's a pattern in it. Where they rise, when they rise."

No, we had never thought so far. It didn't seem possible to witness the rising of a dragon, not after the first failed efforts.

I swallowed heavily. "You think…"

"…that I know where the next one will occur. Yes." Her grin was full of smug complacency.

"And we will be there."

"Exactly." Her gaze became intense. "The rising of the dragons… it's not a simple appearance, Qhourian. It's a reappearance. They're resurrected, the dragons of old."

I cut her off. "I know that. They're the same dragons people fought thousands of years ago, and they only stay dead now if I take their souls. The most important question – no, the _only_ important question is what causes it. Which power is behind it."

Now I had surprised her for a change, but if she had hoped to impress me with earthshattering news, I had to disappoint her.

"You're right, that's the core of the problem. Here," she pointed at a mark south of Windhelm, "Kynesgrove. You haven't been there yet, and if my predictions are correct that's exactly the spot where the next dragon will come to life."

Looking into her excited face, the thrill of the hunt gripped me with sudden force. When I still struggled with myself to leave my seclusion, I hadn't dared to hope that it would bring anything substantial to visit Delphine at all. In fact, I had only come here because it lay on the way to High Hrothgar. The Greybeards would have been my next destination, to ask them about the mysterious Alduin, the arch enemy of mankind and now strangely the only hint I got from Nahfahlaar.

But this… this was substantial. If she was to believe – and she was so certain of herself and her research that it was hard not to – this was the first real lead I ever had.

I would have liked to leave at once, but she said we weren't in a hurry, and I had to trust her in that. The meals she fed me with and the first night in a real bed were delightful, even Snowback got some leftover bones when I told her I wouldn't leave him behind, but by far the best was the bath. Hot water in abundance, with soap and a washcloth… I didn't even know any more how good it felt to be clean. I hadn't cared to bath for months. And I had no idea that I didn't only reek, but stank, and Delphine threw the rags and badly tanned hides I had spent the last months in with a disgusted expression into the fire.

And still she didn't ask, for which I was incredibly thankful. Instead she fit me out with a simple leather armour, a steel shortsword and a bow, and when I mounted the hazel-coloured gelding behind her and we left Riverwood westwards, I felt nearly human again.

Only the looming silhouette of Dragonsreach that we passed in the distance sent a piercing ache into my chest, and I was glad that I sat behind her and she didn't witness how I fought down the tears with clenched jaws and clenched fists.

Kynesgrove was in a turmoil when we arrived, after a ride of nearly two days with only a few hours of rest. I was used to rest on cold hard ground and slept like a log, but I was astonished how easily Delphine fell into the hardships of life outside. It was still winter, after all. But after she had changed out of her tavern keeper costume into a simple leather armour and sheathed a sword at her belt, it was obvious that she had changed into her true identity - the one of a warrior, skilled and powerful.

Shortly after we left the outskirts of Windhelm, the horse left at the stables, a frightened farmer nearly ran us down.

"Dragon! In Kynesgrove! Someone help, please!"

Delphine shot me a satisfied look, and without a further word our easy jog turned into a sprint towards the nearby village. Together we ordered the people running frantically around to seek shelter in their houses, then started to ascend the small hill to the burial ground.

But I was only able to make a few steps, Delphine rushing ahead, when I heard it. The deep rumbling sound echoed far over the landscape, through my bones and into my soul, made it quiver with terror and anticipation... not really a voice, so much more than a voice. Sinister words, somewhere between a whisper and a shout, cruel laughter, dripping with malice and barely containing the power of the words it spoke, the stench of molten metal and rotting flesh... I knew it. I had heard and smelled it once before, when my head lay on the block in Helgen. It was unique, incomparable, and for a moment I was back there, waiting for the death that hovered above me.

After a few moments of those memories flooding my mind, Delphine looked impatiently back to me. I shook myself and started to move again. "It's nothing. Sorry."

But although I was prepared, I was lost for words when we reached the height of the hill. The creature hovering above us was indeed that gigantic reptile easily twice the size of every other dragon I had encountered, the fiery red eyes flaring out of a mass of jet-black scales and spikes and muscles.

The dragon floated above a hollow, his black wings holding the huge body in place with slow, mighty flaps. And he spoke, but he didn't speak to us. In fact, he ignored us entirely. We witnessed the resurrection of one of his brethren.

The process wasn't as frightening as I had expected, although I heard Delphine gasp beside me. The huge bones lying in the pit were ancient, partly covered by earth, but they looked like every other dragon skeleton, and I had seen quite a few of them. But the black one's Thu'um caused something that looked remarkably like the absorption of a soul, just backwards. The golden, erratic swirls of living energy, coming out of nowhere, rushed into the bones, through them, a blinding ball of life formed the flesh, the wings and the light grey layer of scales until the new dragon cowered before its master - because his master he had to be, with this power at his disposal.

The dialogue between the two mighty creatures roared through the sky, a sinister tune, every syllable a word of power. Something beyond mortal comprehension happened here. I felt that I should understand them, some parts of my soul absorbed the strange words, but their meaning remained hidden - only the names they called each other touched a string. The newly resurrected dragon was Sahloknir, the silent hunter of the skies… and his master was Alduin. Aspect of Akatosh, Greatest of them all, Destroyer of Worlds. The Bane of Mundus. Every Nord knew the legends of the great war of the dragons against mankind, ages ago, that had ended with Alduin's defeat. Nobody knew what was myth and what history, but now he hovered in front of us, their leader and master, like doom itself.

I only started to breathe again when he turned to us. When he turned to me.

_"Ful, losei Dovahkiin? Zu'u koraav nid nol dov do hi."_

I didn't have to understand him to catch the dripping malice in his words, but in the end, he deigned me a single sentence in common language. And accused me of arrogance for the title I didn't choose myself. Dovahkiin. I could learn a lot about arrogance from him.

I didn't even have the chance to reply to his challenge, to react to the strange certainty he left behind, the knowledge that we'd meet again, when Alduin already vanished behind the mountains with a few heavy flaps. And Sahloknir attacked with a roar and a blast of fire, knowing that we were about to end the shortest lifetime of a dragon ever.

He was no match for us. Not only Delphine and I faced him, some guards of the village had joined us as well, and even Snowback did his best to provide additional confusion. Brave little critter. The dragon didn't even try to get off the ground, and in the end, he dropped to arrows and steel like all the others, and the impact of his soul, the feeling of being crunched and pulled apart at the same time until it had had found it place inside of my own – it was still familiar although he had been the first dragon with a name. I felt the awe and the fear in the people around me when I knelt in front of the bones, but I didn't mind any more.

When only the same bare skeleton was left that we had started with, Delphine pulled me to my feet and dragged me down the hill.

"We need to talk. Now."

The woman dropped heavily on a chair across from me while the keeper of Kynesgrove's Inn brought us our drinks. She was still out of breath, sweaty and scorched, an excited gleam in her eyes.

"I knew what you are. But it's different now that I've seen it." She took a deep gulp. "I owe you some answers, I suppose. Some more than you already have." Her smile was nearly apologising.

"Yes. I still don't know who you are. _What_ you are."

"Okay." She folded her hands on the table and looked around, assuring herself that no one would overhear us. "I'm a Blade. One of the last members still alive."

My jaw dropped in surprise. A Blade? The Blades were extinct, eradicated by the Thalmor at the beginning of the Great War. But if she spoke true, it would explain her paranoia.

"We've waited for you... for someone like you. Throughout history, the Blades were dragonslayers and sworn protectors of the Dragonborns. And for the last 200 years, since the last Septim emperor, we've been waiting for you to appear."

Divines. Exactly what I needed most. I sighed. "I don't need protectors, Delphine. And least of all the sworn kind."

She recognised my unease and doubt with a scowl. "The Dragonborn is the ultimate dragonslayer. Your main concern should be to stop them… at least it is mine. With your help, I hope."

She had no idea what she got herself into. I had a surprise for her.

"You know that I recognised the dragon that got away? The big black one? He's the same that destroyed Helgen. And now I also know that he's not any dragon. He's Alduin, the Worldeater."

She paled visibly, sudden fear in her eyes, and I couldn't suppress a smirk. Perhaps he was really the root of all evil. I had seen the devastation he could spread, after all, and I knew the stories about him. But he was only a dragon, and even if his appearance opened up more questions than answers, I had the feeling that we had made a large step towards the solution of this riddle today. And he hadn't even faced us, had abandoned Sahloknir to his fate.

"Alduin? By the gods. How do you know?"

"I understood a bit of their conversation. Not much, mainly their names. The one we slew was called Sahloknir, the other one is Alduin."

"It will only become worse from now on… where does he come from, all of a sudden? And why? I'm still convinced that our best lead are the Thalmor. Even if they aren't involved, they'll know who is."

I looked sternly at the woman. She was about to get carried away. This idea was simply ridiculous.

"Delphine… as far as I know, Alduin is the oldest and mightiest of them all. Look at his powers. He's ancient, he's supposed to be dead for thousands of years, and still he's here and resurrecting his brethren. Tell me one single sensible reason why the Thalmor should release such a power. How they'd even be able to. Even you must admit that it's impossible that they _control_ him."

She looked slightly desperate.

"Dragonborn… you're a warrior, and you obviously know already much more about the whole story than I thought, but it seems you lack some understanding of _politics_. Sorry for my open words."

She breathed heavily, her face stern and angry.

"The Thalmor are the worst enemy of mankind in all of Tamriel. They don't hate the Empire... they hate _us_, mankind as a whole. Yes, after the Great War only thirty years ago they established the traitorous White Gold Concordat, but this was still a mutual treaty, not the glorious triumph the Dominion strived for. The Empire still exists, and it's a constant thorn in their side. They certainly intend to make the next war the real victory.

"I don't believe that Alduin's appearance in Helgen and Ulfric's escape were just a coincidence. For them, a powerful rebel like him and this cursed civil war must be like a dream come true, the way it weakens Skyrim and with it the whole Empire. Add the dragons on top, and this land will soon be ready to be picked like a ripe cherry. They're ruthless, in their goals as well as in their methods, and they don't care to shred something to pieces if they can't take it for themselves. They wouldn't hesitate to release an army of dragons just to tear Skyrim and the Empire apart."

She had a point, I had to confess. I had never thought about it that way. And apart from that… even if I didn't believe that the Thalmor were the key, I didn't have any better idea.

"So… any clue how to find out what they know?"

"I like that. Straight to the point." Her grin was back. "I've a few ideas, but I have to talk to some people first. Make preparations." She paused and bit her lip, searching my eyes. "Qhourian... do you need help? Protection?"

"Why do you ask?" I replied warily. She had never called me by my name.

She squared her shoulders. "What has happened here tonight will spread like wildfire through the province. You've been missing, people thought you dead, and now you're back. I just wanna know if I have to expect the Companions to burn down my inn in search for you."

I blanched. Would they? I hadn't thought so far, had managed to push everything that had to do with Jorrvaskr far and deep enough to ignore questions like this.

And it had been so long... they had certainly gone on, like they had always done it. People died or went missing all the time, and I had only been a Companion for a few months, after all. And Vilkas had certainly provided them with a reasonable explanation. He was good at explaining things.

I forced down the memories, the faces of the people that once had meant something to me – Athis' mischievous smirk, Aela's stern scrutiny, the sadness and laughter in Farkas' eyes, and tried to keep my voice as steady as possible. I couldn't suppress the bitterness. "No. I don't think they care."

Sympathy flashed over her face, but then she shrugged, the usual sternness back. "Okay. Meet me back in Riverwood a week from now, please."

I spent the days in the Eldergleam sanctuary, using the solemn quiet under Kynareth's tree to recover, to gain back the strength of body and mind I would need. The events in Kynesgrove had been a fresh start, an unexpected success. But it took these days of contemplation to truly come to terms with my own decision to leave my solitude and start over. I knew it was something I had to do, I couldn't think only of myself, I had a responsibility – taken over back then when the Greybeards acknowledged me as Dovahkiin. Nothing I could get rid off, like I had shed everything else. Even if nothing else was left, I would always have the soul of a dragon.

And again, I felt Kynareth's grace upon me, a subtle affirmation that she watched over me, the feeling of guidance and shelter, and I left the sanctuary with a new sense of determination. I could do this, I would deal with the dragons and Alduin and Akatosh himself if I had to. So much lay behind me, so much that had been distraction and hindrance. No bounds would restrain me now.

Again I entered the inn only shortly before sunrise, but Delphine was waiting for me, an excited gleam in her eyes when she led me down into the hidden room.

"You've come up with something?"

"Yes! I hope so, at least. We must get you into the Thalmor Embassy, their operation centre in Skyrim. Tell me, Dragonborn… what do you think of attending a nice little party?"

She met my disbelief with a smirk. "A… party?"

"Yes, a party. Elenwen, the Thalmor ambassador in Solitude, hosts regular meetings to strengthen their standing in Skyrim's noble society. Or to give those nobles an opportunity to cosy up to them, whatever. I can get you an incognito invitation to the next event."

This was so crazy, I burst out with laughter, her utter look of confusion just adding to my amusement.

"Incognito? Delphine, with all due respect to your excellent contacts... this is crazy. Sorry for the open words." I grinned. "You said yourself that I have no understanding of politics. And you said yourself that I made quite a name for myself. What do you think, how big are my chances to blend into such a party without catching attention and without being recognised?"

Her face fell. "Have you ever met Elenwen? How can you be so sure that she'll identify you?"

"No, I haven't, but that's not the point. First, I'd stand out like a mammoth in the Imperial Palace. Second, there has only to be a single guest who recognises me, and my precious cover is gone. I know a lot of people in Skyrim, and unfortunately even more people know me. Gods, I've fulfilled contracts for nearly every Jarl in the province. No, the risk to go incognito is far too high."

Her disappointment about the shattered plan was so obvious, I almost felt pity, but I had no idea how it was possible that she just overlooked its flaws. Thirty years of doing nothing but serving mead to the local drunks seemed to have taken their toll on her strategic abilities.

"Delphine, if you say I have to get into the embassy and that this event is the best opportunity, we will have to find a way. But there must be better plans than this one." She just stared at the parchment in her hand.

"What do you have there?"

"The guest list for that evening. Believe me, it was hard enough to get."

"Let me have a look." When I read over the list, I was astonished how top-class the names on it were. Some Jarls and their relatives. General Tullius, the military governor of the Legion in Skyrim. A cousin of the emperor himself. Impressive.

When I came to a particular name and title, a very vague idea formed in my head, and I fought down the unease it caused.

"You will probably call me crazy, but… you're something like a spy, aren't you? I mean, the Blades have been called the _hidden eyes and ears of the Empire_. I understand your fondness for secret identities, but it simply wouldn't work with me. But it could work with you - you're used to it, and I could provide the necessary distraction."

At least I had made her curious. I pointed to a name on the list.

"Jarl Idgrod of Morthal. By no means one of the most important names on here, but she's known as loyal to the Empire." I swallowed. "I know her. And I think... well, I could ask her if she'd let me accompany her. It would lift her reputation as well, after all. And as I'm not officially affiliated with any of the important factions in Skyrim, I see no reason why Elenwen shouldn't be delighted to meet me. At least she won't risk to ruin her chances with the Dragonborn." I gave her an insecure grin.

Delphine's gobsmacked expression was hilarious, I nearly could hear her brain work.

"I hoped I could stay out of this entirely," she muttered finally. "It's crucial for the Blades not to attract any attention. We're an illegal organisation, after all. To march directly into the lion's den now…"

"Nobody asks you to give up your cover. What has worked for thirty years will work for another evening, don't you think? We just have to find a foolproof way to get you into the Embassy as well."

Her face lit up. "Malborn! He's my only contact in the embassy itself. Acts as a servant boy. Not very reliable, but as a Bosmer he has plenty of reason to hate the Thalmor. I will ask him to find me a job." Excitement took her over. It seemed she just needed a little push to dismiss the comfortable life she had lived for so long for a bit of action, even if it came with a risk.

Now, she suddenly became busy. She scheduled the whole evening, showed me a blueprint of the building, made plans for every eventuality - what if she didn't make it in, what if her cover was unveiled, what if she couldn't leave her duty, what if somebody revealed that we knew each other? I calmed her down, even suggested to take Snowback with me; he'd provide an extra layer of eccentricity to my charade and could serve as an excellent additional distraction if necessary. I swore that as long as I attended this party, nobody would pay any attention to the servants.

After hours of planning and discussing, she showed me a content smile. "One could think you enjoy this, Dragonborn. Your celebrity role."

My grin was weak. "No. Believe me, it's not fun to stick out like a sore thumb everywhere you go. But I also have to live with it, I've decided to live with it as long as necessary, and when it becomes useful once… I'm gonna make the best of it. I will provide them with a show they'll never forget."

* * *

When the Jarl entered her hall early in the morning, she looked astonished at the cloaked, hooded stranger sitting at the long table. I had counted on her to rise early and slipped into the hall in the dead of night, when only a maid was tiredly sweeping the floorboards and a small boy brought baskets of freshly baked bread to prepare breakfast. The single guard had left me alone when I told him that I'd wait for the Jarl. Hood and warpaint concealed my features well enough.

She rested her hand on the dagger strapped to her hip, her eyes flitting to the soldier at the door and back to me when I approached her, but suddenly, before I had reached her or said a single word, she relaxed visibly.

"Qhouri," she said so quietly that no one but me could hear it, not a trace of surprise in her features, and it made me stop dead, hands clenching into fists. No one had called me Qhouri for ages. No one outside of Jorrvaskr had ever called me that. And then a small smile quirked her lips, and she bowed her head. "Dragonborn," she said equally calm, turned on her heels and made a small gesture to follow her.

A load of tension fell off my shoulders as she led me into her quarters and beckoned me to take a seat in front of the fire, but her face fell in shock when I removed the hood, her eyes locking on the scars on my face. I forestalled the questions she obviously wanted to ask.

"Thank you for receiving me, my Jarl," I said sternly.

"A pleasure," she said composed. "To what do I owe the honour?"

"I need your help."

Idgrod was awesome. When I asked her about that invitation I knew she had, she told me outright that she didn't plan to accept it at all. She was loyal to the Empire because she thought it best for Skyrim, but she detested the Thalmor like everybody else and saw no reason to keep their relationship any closer than strictly necessary. But when I told her that I had to attend that festivity and that I'd like to accompany her there, she changed her mind at once.

Of course she didn't believe for a second that I just wanted to spend a nice evening in her enjoyable company, but when I thought she deserved some kind of explanation, she cut me short.

"I trust you know what you're doing. I trust whatever you do, it won't harm Skyrim in the long run. And if you think you have to mess with those bloody elves, I trust you know what you're dealing with."

I had to be honest.

"Jarl Idgrod, I can't tell you any more, but you know I don't want to go there to fraternise with the Thalmor. Are you aware of the possible risk if you act as my contact?"

Her gaze was amused and sympathetic.

"Qhourian… Hjaalmarch may be the least important hold of Skyrim, but you don't stay Jarl for more than twenty years without _some_ insight into local politics and the right connections. I know exactly what I get myself into if I help you, believe me. And it'll be some change to the daily grind." Her grin was mischievous, but then her face became serious.

"But I'd like to ask something of you in return."

I should have known it. "What is it? Another dragon?"

She smiled warmly. Suddenly I wasn't the Dragonborn any more. Just a… friend?

"No, no dragon. In fact, dragons aren't that much of a problem any more, at least in my hold. My guards got some special training during the last months, and I must confess that their skills have improved a lot. Hjaalmarch has never been safer, and my men can deal with dragons easily now. Hope you don't mind that they steal your souls." She chuckled.

"No, I want something more… personal. Perhaps I shouldn't meddle at all into this, but somehow… I care for my people, and Farkas has become one of us during the last months. He has helped us a lot... and I like the boy."

I clenched my teeth, my insides contracting into a ball of dread. I had known beforehand that the odds were high that he was here. What if she called him? What if I'd have to meet him?

"I don't want to see him," I pressed out.

She searched my face, sensed my retraction, my resistance. "You don't have to. He isn't here at the moment anyway." But before I could be relieved, she continued, straightening herself, the authority of her age and her title in her voice.

"I don't know what happened, he never told me, and it's not my business." My frown grew deeper, but her gesture stopped my reply. "But I know that you've been missing for quite some time, long enough to convince a lot of people that you're long dead. Even if that was your intention, Farkas is not among them. He lost so much lately, but he still believes that you live, and he won't give up this one hope until he sees your corpse with his own eyes. Please, Qhourian… I won't tell him where you are or what we've spoken about, but at least let me tell him that you're alive and well. Just this knowledge would take a load of grief from him."

I buried my face in my hands, lost for words. There was this cut in my life, and nothing before it mattered any more. Breaking away, forgetting, repressing the memories, it had been necessary to survive. My way of dealing with things. It seemed that I had to live my life in small episodes, short periods of stability until everything broke apart once more and I had to start anew. But somewhere deep inside I had always known that one day, I'd have to deal with the events that had caused this cut, or they would haunt me forever. It was inevitable. That moment had come, it seemed.

I didn't want to know what Idgrod meant when she said that he'd lost so much. I didn't want to deal with him or the other Companions and even less deal with the memories of our time together. But I had to face the fact that my act of simple self-preservation had caused pain. It was the last I thought of back then, after the death of the child, after… Vilkas. By cutting myself away from the pain and the world, I had also completely locked out everybody else.

But what I did had an impact on others, the same way the actions of others had such a fatal impact on me. In this moment I realised that I had the power to cause pain… or grief, or joy, because my ties to these people could be cut, but they could not be undone. My actions did matter, and it was impossible to outrun this responsibility.

Only when I felt the older woman's arm around my shoulders, I nodded.


	2. Negotiations

In the end our plan worked… well, like a charm would be exaggerated, considering that the Thalmor had a new number one on their "Most Wanted" list, but it worked and Delphine got what she needed.

The party itself was the most ridiculous event I had ever attended – despite the majority of the guests being Nords, it was something incredibly Altmerish. Stiff and sophisticated. Food and drinks were excellent, though slightly exotic - not too exotic of course, in the end most of the guests were simple natives with their barbaric tastes, but strange enough to radiate exclusivity and make clear that, despite the closed borders, the Thalmor had excellent contacts to the rest of the world.

The Ambassador had not shown her astonishment with a single expression that I accompanied Idgrod, uninvited and unexpected, and she greeted us personally when the guard at the door didn't know what to do with me. Idgrod's affable declaration that her good friend the Dragonborn would not have missed this opportunity to pay her respects for the world only caused an elegantly arched eyebrow and a pinched smile.

I wore only simple black leather pants, a long plain tunic and no jewellery but my warpaint and the enchanted necklace from Farengar, mostly to stick out against all the fancy clothing and glitter around me. Especially Idgrod had gone absolutely over the top and clad herself in an ample, pitch black robe of silk and satin, over and over adorned with frills and ruffles, golden buttons and nacre sequins and crowned by a small hat with a tulle veil and black feathers. She looked like a crossing between a mammoth and a raven – her own words, I would've never dared to express my thoughts in such a way. Together, we were a ridiculous couple, and we knew it.

Elenwen made me hand over the small elven dagger tied to my belt to a guard immediately at our arrival. Speak about paranoia. When she said that I wouldn't need it in her house, I couldn't suppress a smirk.

"Of course not, Ma'am Ambassador. Not even should a dragon decide to disturb your wonderful festivity tonight." Idgrod's snicker was unmistakable, and I really enjoyed the flicker of uncertainness in the Altmer's eyes.

The Thalmor Ambassador was… different from what I expected. I hadn't met many High Elves before, but the few that I knew were tall and slender, of an elegant grace which gave them their natural beauty. Elenwen was tall and slender as well, but she didn't show so much as a hint of grace or beauty. Her whole attitude radiated nothing but contempt and arrogance, and her heavily painted eyes didn't hide her emotions half as good as she thought, despite the pinched smile on her lips. She was clad in the typical Thalmor attire, grey, formal highnecked robes, but with a better fit and more embroidery than those of the officers beside her. The way she followed every of my movements, how she tracked who I talked to and the fact that one of her guards never left my vicinity clearly proved that she didn't trust me. Which was exactly what I wanted – the more of her attention I could hold, the better. I just hoped she'd believe me that my presence in the embassy was caused by simple curiosity.

During the dinner, everybody sat stiffly around a huge, festively decorated table and tried to engage in more or less toiled, boring conversations with total strangers. I felt myself constantly observed, and it was strangely ironic that for once I was glad that I had in fact learned how to make shallow conversation, deal with several sets of cutlery and not to make a complete fool of myself. People were obviously more than curious to get to know the Dragonborn, to find out if I had anything blatantly heroic on me or if I was really just a simple girl with the Nord-typical bias for physical violence.

Delphine had got a job in the kitchen, disguised as a simple maid she was to help with the preparations for the meal. Something she was certainly good at, after thirty years behind the counter of an inn. I just had to focus the attention of the whole household on me to give her room for action, and my behaviour was as cocky as possible.

It was nearly too easy, even if I felt like a hired trickster after I had answered the same questions over and over again. Dragons were everywhere, and most of the guests had seen one in the meantime, at least from afar. The stories how to find them, how to kill them and how it felt to absorb one of their souls seemed to fascinate them to no end. When the request for a demonstration of a dragon shout came up - and I knew beforehand it would come - I presented my sweetest smile and beckoned one of the elven officers to my side.

"Sir, I trust you have a weapon to protect us?" Altmer were usually more prone to magic than to steel, but as a soldier the man would hopefully be able to use both. He just nodded, eyeing me warily. I gestured at the guests standing around us, sipping at their drinks.

"Please, ladies and gentlemen, give us some room. Playing with dragon's toys is never entirely safe. We don't want anybody to get hurt, do we?"

When the large and undeniably handsome Altmer and I finally stood in the middle of a large circle, he with his broadsword unsheathed and ready to strike, I with wide spread arms and no means to defend myself, I ordered him with a friendly smile to attack me.

He was a lousy sword fighter, and it helped that his stance and his eyes announced his attack seconds before it he lunged at me.

_"FEIM!"_

It was a simple shout, but I knew the effect was impressive. My body became transparent while retaining its form, and the sword aiming for my chest just slipped through the ethereal flesh. I didn't even flinch, in contrary to my attacker. He recoiled sharply, his astonishment breaking way in a gasp, and I grinned cheekily at him when the effect faded.

"You're too easily surprised, Sir." I couldn't help it, but this was fun. "Wanna try something different? Or someone else?"

General Tullius stepped forward and took the sword from the Altmer. Now I had to be more cautious, despite his shiny ornate armour this was a battle-hardened soldier, not a pretty sentinel not used to close combat. Tullius stood motionless but tense like a drawn bow, not even a wink hinting at his intents. But he took too long.

_"ZUN!"_

The sword just slipped from his grip, but the momentum of his attack let him stumble forwards, his hand still clenched to a fist, and the weapon glided over the polished tiles of the floor until I stopped it with my boot.

"You'd be dead by now if I wanted, General," I smirked at his consternation, "decapitated by your own sword."

"Impressive…" he just muttered, and I saw the fascination in his eyes… in his, and in every pair of eyes around me. Most of the guests were simply excited about the unusual performance, but Elenwen's gaze was predatory. She'd certainly not underestimate me.

I turned to my audience. "There's one more thing I can show you without harming anybody, but for this demonstration I need even more space, please. And a shield." When the whole length of the great hall was at my disposal, I beckoned the Altmer officer over to me again and handed him an apple. "Please, Sir. I know you'd prefer a fireball, but I don't want to risk any damage on this beautiful furniture. Would you please stand beside me and throw this apple through the hall, as hard as you can?" He looked curiously and nodded. The moment he lifted his arm and let the fruit fly, my

_"WULD!"_

chimed through the room, and I caught it easily at the other side of the room. The apple burst on the shield, and a choked snicker went through the audience when the juice sprayed over the Ambassador. Her own fault, I had told her not to come too close.

It was a strange kind of fun I had that evening. A weird mixture of a foreboding sense of danger, excitement and acceptance. I didn't have a name that day, nobody was interested in me as a person. Everybody just saw the Dragonborn, and it was exactly what I wanted to achieve.

But the longer the evening lasted the more restless I became. Nothing hinted at anything unusual going on in the Embassy. Certainly there'd be some kind of alarm if an intruder would have been caught? My nervousness even grew when Elenwen approached me. I knew she'd come, sooner or later, search the contact to find out where I stood in the many conflicts boiling in Skyrim, and that she'd probably try to interrogate me herself. Observing how insolent and pretentious she dealt even with people like General Tullius gave me an impression how dangerous she really was. But I'd do my best.

"Dragonborn…" she sat down beside me with a wide, false smile, "finally I've the opportunity to express my joy about making your acquaintance. And my gratitude for your attending our little festivity here."

"Too much honour, Ma'am Ambassador," I muttered with cast down eyes, "and please, if I may express a wish, please call me Qhourian. Dragonborn, that's so formal. I'm just a country girl that's quite overwhelmed by your warm welcome, you know." I hoped my shy glance at her was credible.

"Oh, but you're so much more than a simple girl, friend!" she exclaimed. "You're a legend come true! Certainly you'll crave a rather heroic destiny, for yourself and for your homeland!" She shot me a sharp glance. "In fact, I'm really interested in your opinion, as a neutral, outside observer. As far as I know, you're not affiliated to any of the more… important factions in Skyrim, aren't you? Nothing against the honourable Companions, of course, but they're known to not take part in… politics, am I right?"

Strange relief flowed through me. She couldn't have had too close an eye on me if she thought I was still a Companion. Perhaps she didn't know about the encounter in Labyrinthian either.

"Yes, your information is correct, Ma'am. I'm afraid I don't know enough about politics to say anything… substantial about these matters."

Of course she kept at it.

"But you certainly have an opinion about this horrible war? I suppose it must break every true Nord's heart to see your beautiful homeland ravished by its own people?" A slight flush was visible on her cheeks. She toyed with me, and she enjoyed it. But I could play that game too.

"Honestly, Ma'am," I leant closer to her and lowered my voice to a bit more than a whisper, the smell of dust, magic and a sickly sweet perfume rising into my nose. "If I may be so blunt, I don't like that Stormcloak in Windhelm at all. I don't like how he wants Skyrim just for the Nords. I'm a Nord myself, but the country is so big… I mean, not even all Companions are Nords, and we carry Ysgramor's legacy! "

That was definitely a content smirk on her clamped lips. I was glad I didn't even have to lie, I had a feeling she'd see through me at once if I tried. Fortunately she wasn't sensitive enough to take my nervousness for what it was, probably thought it to be caused by her overwhelming personality.

"You're much wiser than you think, Qhourian," she cajoled me, her eyes still cold like stone, "that's what we all strive for. To live together in peace, all races and all people. I'm glad to hear these words from someone like you." She took a deep breath and took a small sip from her wine, her next question casual.

"Forgive me my curiosity, friend, but what do you do as Dragonborn? We've seen your impressive… powers today, but how do you think it will go on with the dragons?"

I couldn't suppress a smile. If she only knew that the answer to that question was exactly why I was here! But I contained my expression of innocent naivety.

"Oh… I'm not sure, Ma'am. Go on killing dragons, I suppose. There's nothing else I could do, isn't it? It's my duty, after all. And at least that's something I'm really good at!" I showed her my most boisterous smile.

Delphine couldn't find a better moment to make her presence known. A guard, clad in shining elven armour, his hand on his sword, stormed into the hall towards Elenwen. She surely didn't want me to hear what he had to say, but I couldn't just ignore his frantic whisper.

"Intruders! Not sure how many, but the guards in the upper level are dead. Your orders, Ma'am?"

Elenwen's face lost even the smallest trace of cheerfulness. "No word to the guests as long as we don't know who it is and what they want. Special attention to the dungeon and every exit. Don't let them escape!"

I needed to get out of here. Help Delphine, whatever she was doing at the moment. Cause a distraction. Cause as much harm as possible. I intervened. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I couldn't avoid to listen. Is there anything I can do to help?"

She looked at me, taxing and cautious. "I suppose I can't convince you to just… forget this incident and keep quiet about it?"

I smiled reassuringly and shook my head. "Hardly. Not when there's danger ahead. It would be a shame to let this wonderful evening end in bloodshed."

"Okay. As long as we don't know who and how many of them we have to face, we have to prepare for everything, even for a battle inside these walls. That's difficult, with all these strangers here, one of whom may even be the target of the attack. Or the traitor that caused it." Her gaze tried to pierce into my mind. Delphine had done an incredible job. She must have wreaked havoc if the Ambassador was desperate enough to consider my offer.

"Yes, Dragonborn, your help would be appreciated. Now you can prove your loyalty to your Empire and its allies. Rulindil!" She called one of her officers, the one who had helped me so heroically with my performance.

"You two go to the dungeon. We don't know how well our attackers know their way around, but there's an exit there. Dragonborn, you will get your weapon at the entrance. Hurry!" As soon as I turned away, I heard her whisper. "Keep your eyes on her. She can be useful, but kill her when she tries anything." I couldn't suppress a light chuckle. These elves were so used to have the upper hand that they lost every sense of subtlety. While I made my way through the room, I met Idgrod's gaze, and she knew at once that something was gonna happen. I just hoped she'd make it out safe, and no harm would come to her because she'd brought me here.

"Snowback, come here!" Rulindil lifted an elegant eyebrow under his hood when the dog took his place at my side. I smirked at him. "Don't worry, he's well trained and a fierce little boy. He'd fight a dragon alone to protect me!" Not a man of many words, that Altmer, but he nodded. Not that he had a much of a choice, though.

"I'd like to see the dead guards, please."

"Why?"

"To see how they've been killed, of course! That could be important, don't you think? To see what we have to expect?"

I saw the lightning form in his palms. He was certainly a dangerous fighter in his own rights, but he had no idea how to deal with such a situation.

I had neither, but at least I knew what had happened.

The dead guards on the upper level had been assassinated, fast and silently. No signs of a fight in the chamber, one of them with a broken neck, the other stabbed in the back. I examined them thoroughly, then turned to Rulindil who just watched me instead to lift a finger himself.

"What do you think, Sir?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Not sure… there hasn't been much fighting, there must have been quite a supremacy to overwhelm them so easily. And the attackers must be well equipped, or they would have taken at least their weapons. Everybody knows our weapons are superior to nearly everything else."

"You're clearly an expert, and I think I agree. Does that make me an expert too?" I grinned at him, a bit childish, and the arrogance in his expression even deepened with my consent.

"Of course I'm right. We have to be careful. I hope you're not afraid to fight more than one enemy at a time?"

My smirk was cocky. "I'm a Companion, Sir. I'm used to work with a shield-sibling, and I'm used to be outnumbered." The Companions as part of my disguise and a Thalmor mage as a shield-sibling, that had its own irony. Especially as I didn't intend to let him survive this… mission.

On our way through the embassy we found a few more victims Delphine had left in her wake as well as plenty of guards patrolling the corridors and the courtyard. What a waste, as if they expected an army to break out of a closet. Two more dead Altmer lying in their own blood directly behind the door to Elenwen personal study finally forced some curses from my reticent companion, but they were nearly drowned out by the noise coming from below us and two more guards crashing through the door, a battered, limp body between them. I couldn't suppress a relieved gasp when I saw that it wasn't Delphine.

Rulindil spun around to his colleagues. "Who's that?"

"Malborn, the Bosmer who's in charge for the wine cellar. We caught him crawling through the guard's quarters, and he tried to flee. Wanted to lock him up till there's more time to interrogate him."

Rulindil pointed to a trap door. In the meantime, the fighting noise from below had dwindled. "Something's going on down there. We go together, be careful." He led the way, down the narrow spiral stairs. I stayed in the back of the group, Snowback by my side, and hadn't even reached the bottom when one of the guards let out a surprised yell. The large room with its iron cages on one side was a battlefield. A prisoner hang motionless in his shackles in one of the cells, with a robed Thalmor sitting across of him, the arrow piercing his temple and a small line of blood the only hint that he wasn't alive any more. Two more armoured guards lay dead and badly mangled in the hallway. But apart from the corpses the room was empty, and the only exit, a trapdoor in the far corner, was locked. The Thalmor searched frantically for a clue, the unconscious Bosmer heedlessly dropped against a wall.

Wherever Delphine hid, I didn't have time to wait that they'd finish their investigation. But the moment I sucked in my breath with a sharp hiss, a leather-clad figure burst out of a haypile in a corner, hay that was usually used to cover the bare stone ground in the prisoner cells.

_"FUS RO DAH!"_

The shout hurled the two guards against the back wall, but Rulindil, busy examining the dead wizard, spun around and let his spell fly in a single move. "I knew not to trust you, bitch!" he hissed when the lightning hit me. No dragon soul could have protected me from this attack – but the mammoth soul in Farengar's amulet fortunately did, and what should have turned my brain into a useless mass of gore just dazed me, bright sparks dancing behind my lids, and I slumped down the wall when my muscles went numb and twitched in spasms.

But I didn't lie when I told him that Snowback would fight a dragon to protect me. The dog jumped on the Altmer with everything he had and clenched his teeth into his left wrist, tearing the fabric of gloves and robe apart. Too bad he was too small to reach his throat.

No way to get off another shout, not with my dazed brain, not without risking to hurt my allies. I had to rely on my dagger against the powerful mage. And on my furry, courageous companion, who didn't let go although Rulindil dashed his body against the cage bars. I attacked when I saw a dagger in his other hand, ready to slit the dog's throat. For a short moment he wasn't able to throw any more magic around, this was a chance I had to use. I hurled myself at him and crashed him against the bars, grabbing his outstretched arm and forcing it with all my weight around the corner of the cage. His scream, the pop of his shoulder dislocating and the clank of the dropped dagger made a beautiful sound that was only topped by the wet gurgling when my own short blade found his neck.

Finally I had time to turn to the other fight. Delphine had finished one of the guards before the other had recovered from my shout, but now she was heavily pressed. I saw her limp, gashes in her armour and blood on hands and face, but she fought frantically against the much larger mer. And she still showed an infectious grin when I hurried to her side to finally end this.

"Good to see you, Dragonborn," she gasped between her attacks, "had a nice evening?"

When the Thalmor realised that I was unarmoured and only armed with a small dagger, he turned his attention to me. His last fault. Delphine's blow nearly tore through his neck.

"Yes. Yes, I had," I panted with a giggle.

We both breathed heavily, but the still grinning woman pointed to the trapdoor. "We need the key, help me search?" Delphine's first victim had it in one of the pockets of his robe, and after she'd hurled the motionless Bosmer over her shoulder and I'd taken Snowback in my arms, we finally left this place. Only a frost troll guarding the Embassy's back door tried to stop us again, but he fell easily to Delphine's arrows.

The loot Delphine had pilfered from various chests and trunks, especially in Elenwen's office, was better than we could have hoped. Although my prediction had been correct and the Thalmor didn't know anything substantial about the rising of the dragons or Alduin, they had found something else… _someone_ else. Beside two comprehensive dossiers about Ulfric Stormcloak and Delphine herself that were worth a fortune all by themselves and would perhaps come useful later, they had gathered intelligence about another blade living in hiding, and she blanched visibly when she opened the thin booklet.

It was about a man named Esbern - a friend and colleague of hers she had thought dead for years. And now she had returned to Riverwood, we had sent Malborn to Morthal to tell Idgrod to keep her head down for the next time, and I was on my way to Riften. This rotten, reeking skeeverhole of a city. Foul-smelling channels running beside and beneath dilapidated wooden buildings, and I only knew the upper, more friendly part of it. Esbern however was supposed to hide somewhere in the sewers, and I didn't even dare to imagine what debris I'd encounter there - the literal and the human kind.

I had only a single name to rely on, but my contact wasn't hard to find. The first I did in the Bee and Barb was order a meal and a drink to wash away the disgusting smell, but when I asked the all-knowing inn-keeper if she knew someone named Brynjolf, the Argonian just grinned and nodded towards the man who had occupied the stool beside me, eyeing me curiously.

I frowned when I turned my gaze on him. Scruffy strands of shoulder-long, flaming red hair framing a pale stubbled face with blood-shot eyes and a badly treated scar on his cheek, hands with greasy, black fingernails clenching around a tankard, his breath reeking of old mead. He looked much older than he probably was, and he could have been handsome - if he'd spend at least three days in the hot springs out in the tundra to wash away the filth that had accumulated in the gashes of his worn out armour and probably in every pore beneath it.

"Lass," he drawled when he saw that he had my attention, his voice hoarse and slurry from too much mead and too little sleep. He leant over far too close, and the rank breath was overlaid by the smell of old sweat and something rotten that seemed to belong to him like the scar or the smug grin. "Better be careful when you ask that openly for people you don't know. Riften has a bias for lasses with pockets full of coin, and it doesn't care where it comes from."

Holy Kyne, this was my contact?

"Brynjolf?"

"The same, lass, at your service." This smug, slightly desperate grin… Delphine had said he led a business here. Well connected in the city, especially into the lower regions. This man looked as if he had just gambled away a fortune, buried his lover and got into a fist fight with a cave bear, all in a couple of hours. But I just needed an information. How hard could that be?

"Keerava, a drink for my friend here. Whatever he usually takes." I eyed him appraisingly.

"Take it as the first part of a payment. I need an information." If he led in fact something like a business, however shady, he'd perhaps appreciate my straightforwardness. If he was what he looked like, he wouldn't be of much use anyway.

Suddenly he sat straight, his eyes losing some of their dullness.

"Information doesn't come cheap nowadays, lass."

"I know. I tell you what I need, and you tell me what you want for it. Easy?" His reply was a chuckle. Perhaps we got somewhere.

"No, not that easy. If you want something, find me in the Ragged Flagon, and we'll talk." He stood up with a surprisingly fluid motion, and I was sure he somehow vanished from my sight before he had even reached the door. No, didn't seem we got anywhere. I sighed in frustration.

"Keerava, please enlighten me. Who in Oblivion _is that_?" The Argonian barkeeper looked stunned.

"You wanna make a deal with Brynjolf and don't even know who he is? That's hilarious!" She laughed heartily, showing every single one of her impressive teeth. "It would be much more fun to keep you in the dark and let you run straight into the trap, but… I'll tell you anyway, because it will be of no use to you." She chuckled at my scowl, obviously having far too much fun with my ignorance.

"Brynjolf is a traitorous bastard, a serial womaniser, he knows everything going on in Riften and around, he has his fingers in every foul deal in the province _and_ he's probably the second best thief in all of Skyrim. Because if he were the best, he'd have the job of his boss and not just be the second in command of the Thieves Guild." She looked curiously at my reaction, and I didn't disappoint. I felt my own jaw drop into my lap. Thieves! Delphine, you can already prepare for a long, painful death for not telling me. I had no idea how to deal with thieves. Organised thieves, in particular.

I tried to screw together the few facts I had. Esbern was supposed to hide somewhere in the Riften sewers, also known as the Ratway. A name that gave me at least a hint what to expect down there, and everything I knew the Thalmor knew as well. Brynjolf was supposed to know exactly where he was and lead me to him. But the Thieves Guild… it would probably not be enough just to pull out my pouch and count some coins into his palm. He would try to use me, especially if his situation was really half as desperate as he looked like.

"Am I right that this Ragged Flagon is in the Ratway? Sounds like a tavern name."

The Argonian just grinned amused and pointed at her feet. "Exactly. Probably the only tavern in all of Tamriel that expects its guests to crawl through the wastes of a whole city to reach it. And if that doesn't kill you, the stuff they sell as mead there certainly will."

I had survived crawls through ancient tunnels filled with half-rotten undead. I had cleared countless bandit hideouts, had wiped out frost spider nests in abandoned mines and exterminated more than one den of bears. This were just sewers. How bad could it be?

I had no idea.

The worst wasn't the smell, though I'd never smelled anything like this before, and never wanted to repeat the experience. The worst wasn't the vermin, and it wasn't the sleazy wrecks of human beings who defended their miserable existences with their lives – as if I put any value to them.

The worst was that these bloody sewers were such a bloody maze that every ancient Nordic tomb was a children's playground in comparison, and that it took forever! I wandered and crawled around aimlessly for hours and hours, encountered the same marks and the same corpses over and over again without finding a way, an entrance or an exit. Even my so often approved method of always taking the left turn proved to be absolutely useless in this maze of filth and mud. Once I heard voices and the clanking of tankards behind a wall and was very tempted to gain access with a wellplaced Shout, but it would have probably collapsed the buildings above me.

Nobody could blame me for being angry when I finally found a nearly invisible door in the darkest corner of these godscursed tunnels, after an endless crawl on all fours through a narrow pipe half filled with a non-descript matter! Nobody could blame me for losing my manners entirely when Brynjolf greeted me with a pretentious, broad grin and the words "That's the spirit, lass! Didn't expect to see you ever again!" I didn't care about the threat in the faces around us when I grabbed him by the collar, my hands leaving a muddy mark on his armour.

"Before we talk about anything else, you _will_ show me the back door to this rotten place." Not the smartest move probably, to attack the only one who could help me in front of his friends, but I couldn't restrain myself. This little test he had put me through had brought me to the edge. Promptly I felt the tip of a blade between my ribs, but Brynjolf shooed the woman behind me away.

"Leave her alone, Vex. This lass may be hot tempered, but she's too smart to go further."

No, I wouldn't. Not yet, at least. The woman backed off with a growl, but she kept her hand on the hilt of her weapon.

"Tell me, lass… it seems you're serious or you wouldn't be here, but why should I want to make a deal with you?" He beckoned me over to a table and ordered something to drink from the man behind the raw, dirty wooden counter. After all, this was a tavern, populated with the most shady folk I'd ever seen assembled in all of Skyrim. All of them eyeing us, curiously and threatening. I decided to come straight to the point. No need to draw this out longer than necessary.

"Because you have something I need: information about a man named Esbern. A knowledge that will cost you your head if the wrong people just take it from you. But it will save your life and the one of your friends here if I get it in time. Make your choice."

I looked around, took in the large room with the basin filled with a murky sludge, the water dripping from the slick walls, the greasy stone floor and the makeshift tavern area with its raw wooden furniture. How in Oblivion could anyone in his right mind choose to _live_ here?

"Oh, and because I will tear your little refuge here to pieces if I don't get what I need. Not that it'd make much difference." Finally he was alert, and I saw his gaze wander over me with a new expression, gauging and with a hint of respect.

"Somehow I believe you could really do that," he muttered. "You got that certain spark… I could make use of someone like you, you know?" He grinned, and the atmosphere lightened up a bit.

I returned the smirk. "No way, Brynjolf. Not before you install some bathing facilities down here. And learn to use it."

"You should've seen me in better times!" he exclaimed, throwing up his arms in a broad gesture that spanned the whole room. "When this was a palace, overflowing with luxury and all amenities anyone could wish for. A pity we've only met now, after our Lady Luck has left us for so long." Well, I wasn't really interested in the latest history of the Thieves Guild, but this was just another pointer that we were still negotiating.

"I'm afraid I don't have any influence on the divines, but I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for the information I need."

He sensed my impatience and leant back in his chair, arms crossed in front of his chest, and suddenly I had the nagging feeling that nothing escaped these sharp green eyes.

"You know, lass, we're used to strange folk down here, but it's been a bit too much lately. Especially when all of them want the same. First those cursed elves, and now you… this information must be really precious. And I wonder what's suddenly so special about that crazy old guy who may or may not be hiding here. I mean, he's completely nuts. Even we get out from time to time, but that man hasn't left his room for years."

Finally, we were getting somewhere. Excitement took over. "What elves are you talking about?"

He grimaced with disgust. "Thalmor. They came down here as if the whole place belonged to them, less than a day ago, asked stupid questions, plundered our supplies and wreaked havoc in the tunnels. Not that we told them anything. Even thieves have their honour."

That were bad news. Hopefully I wasn't too late.

"Okay, Brynjolf, if you want anything like a future down here, I have to get going. I'm sure you know what the Thalmor are capable of if they get really angry. I need to find Esbern, and I need to find him fast. In return I will get rid of these unwelcome guests of yours. I think that's a good deal, with a much higher risk for me than for you."

The unquenchable smirk left Brynjolf's face, and he nodded. He seemed to realise that this wasn't a game any more. Not even the kind of business he was used to, and I had to trust him that he wouldn't try to rip me off.

"Rune, come over here for a moment," he shouted over to the people gathered at the counter. A young Imperial in the same shoddy armour he wore came over and looked expectantly from his boss to me. "Lad, you've brought food and stuff to the old guy in the Warrens, haven't you?"

"Yes, on occasion, when Vekel didn't have time. Why?"

"Take this lady to him. Get your weapons, but let her do the work. She promised to get rid of the Thalmor scum down there."

When we left the room through another door, I realised that Brynjolf didn't even ask for my name. He either wasn't interested, knew it already, or he thought we'd meet again and didn't bother for now. Weird, that guy.

The Warrens were just more of the same, darkness, dirt and rot with Thalmor on top. Rune showed me the way, but he let me lead and take the onslaught of everything we encountered, just plinking one or another arrow from time to time. Now I wished I hadn't left Snowback at the stables. On the other hand, I didn't even want to imagine what the smell down here would do to his sensitive nose.

The Altmer warriors in their shiny armours weren't that much of a challenge anyway, but the wizards were a real pain. Their lightning attacks in the narrow tunnels seemed to multiply and find their targets over and over again, and the air became hot and smoky from their fireballs. Strangely, the attacks became less the further we got, although I heard shouting in the distance. If what I feared was true, we'd have an even harder time on our way out.

Finally the young thief stopped at the end of a dead end, in front of a heavy wooden door with a spyhole.

"I'm sure you'll find your way back, don't you?" he said and turned to leave, but I grabbed his arm.

"Don't be stupid. Didn't you recognise that the attacks have stopped long ago? They used us to lead them here. Unless you wanna fight your way through an army of of very angry Thalmor all on your own, you better stay."

I knocked, and the hole immediately opened, as if the resident had waited behind the door. "Oh, Rune… is it time again?" The small part of the face I could see was old and crinkly, but the grey eyes looked clear, and the voice was deep and full. Not at all like the craziness I had expected.

That changed when he saw me, the man's voice pitching into a panicked babble. "By the gods, there they are, and you led them here, traitor scum." The hole closed with a bang, and I felt silly speaking to a door.

"Esbern, please open the door. I need to talk to you. Delphine sends greetings."

"Delphine? Esbern? What? No, that's not me. I'm not Esbern. I don't know what you're talking about. Go away!" His voice got a whiny, trembling undertone, as if he didn't want to understand what was going on around him. I heard steps in the distance, many steps, approaching the last corner before they'd see us.

Before I could argue any further, the first fireball flew towards us, avoiding Rune only by a hair's breadth and scorching the wall behind him. At least the thief wasn't as helpless as I had feared - he knocked his first arrow with calm certainty and let it fly accurately. I hit the door with everything I had.

"Yes, Delphine sends greetings, I'm the Dragonborn, and she told me to ask you where you've been on Frostfall the 30th." The 30th of Frostfall in 4E 171, the day the Dominion had sealed the demise of the Blades. A macabre password that Delphine had given me. I just hoped it'd change his mind, and quickly. "And now for all that is holy open the damned door and help, or do you want the Thalmor to roast you alive in your little nest here?"

I didn't have time to see if my words had any effect when half a dozen fighters stormed towards us, with three mages behind them. Rune took care of the first of those, and fortunately in the narrow tunnel not all of them could reach us at once, but there was no way we would survive that fight with common means only. If it caused an earthquake in the city above us, I couldn't help it.

_"FUS RO DAH!"_

The Shout hit our attackers with full force and let the front line tumble against the people behind them, the whole group getting entangled into a pile of limbs and yells and drawn weapons hurting themselves. A glorious sight, and it would have been even more hilarious if I had had something to finish the chaos quickly. Instead I sprinted towards the elven mess, a dumbfounded Rune shortly behind me, just to feel something hot fly by and sear one of my braids.

Esbern had finally decided to take part in our little quarrel to save him, and Shor's bones, he was effective. Fireball after fireball hit the Thalmor warriors, and with the assistance of our arrows they didn't even come close to the door we defended so frantically. Even their ranged attacks couldn't harm us seriously, as we could take cover in Esbern's room while they had nowhere to retreat.

I had to confess, they were courageous, especially after we entrenched ourselves in Esbern's refuge. But the old man showed remarkable quick-wittedness in this fight, and with the three of us working together as if we had years of experience as a team, they didn't have a chance. Only when the last yell died down and the smoke from the pile of bodies in the tunnel evaporated, I turned to the thief.

"Good job, Rune. Didn't expect thieves to be such capable fighters. I think now it's safe for you to return."

He just grinned a boyish, open smile. "No, now it's too late. No way I'll miss the fun to introduce the Dragonborn to the others! What you did here, we will talk about it for months, and Bryn will eat his boots that he let you get away with so little!"

I liked this boy. Not only because he had proven to be a capable fighter, doing his job without bragging, but he didn't try to betray me, and, in his own, strange way, he had an honesty about him that was refreshing. I couldn't imagine how someone like him could make a living solely at the expense of others. But on the other hand, who was I to judge? I didn't know his history… and I had been a mercenary myself, killing for money without asking questions.

Anyway, I had to turn my attention to the old man who cowered in a corner of the tiny room. It didn't seem he was particularly eager to leave this place.

"Esbern? We got to leave now. I'm gonna take you back to Delphine. You'll be safe there."

He looked at me with wide open eyes, swimming in tears, his lips trembling. What a difference to the dedicated powerful mage we'd seen only moments ago! I felt more than uncomfortable.

"Dragonborn! Who cares about _safety?_ There's _hope_, finally! You've come! The end is near, but you've finally come, and there's hope again! Do you have any idea what that means!?"

I scratched my head. Did we really have to discuss the Dragonborn destiny now? "Eh… yes? That I will be able to overcome Alduin, some day? Perhaps?"

"Yes! Yes! Alduin, the Worldeater, the devourer of souls, here and in the afterlife, he will perish! Gimme a second, just a second, I will just grab some things and be ready…" Suddenly he was full of enthusiastic energy, not caring a bit that he had just barely survived the attack of nearly a dozen Thalmor. He dug through some sacks under his bed, obviously his only belongings, while shooting sceptical glances at me and continuously muttering into his grey beard. I only understood single words, something about the end of the world, Alduin and Sovngarde, and even Rune grinned amused about his hectic, frantic behaviour. I could understand how Esbern could convey the impression that he was totally insane. Perhaps he really was, but I had the feeling that he'd still be able to surprise us.

The way back to the Ragged Flagon was easy - thanks to Rune's guidance, I would have never found the shortest way out. We met a few more Thalmor, but it seemed they were already fleeing when we caught them. The scene when we finally entered the tavern again caught me entirely off guard, though - Rune burst into the room first, but before he could get out a word, Brynjolf greeted us already with a casual wink.

"Uh, Dragonborn, already back? And all in one piece? Fine, fine…" My face as well as Rune's caused roaring laughter around the room, and the redheaded Nord looked more than complacent. He gestured me over to the counter.

"Vekel, mead for our guests. The good stuff! Don't think we have to expect a bunch of angry Thalmor burst through that door any more. Please, Qhourian, Esbern, take the time to have a drink with us."

Esbern refused the offered mug with a scowl, but Brynjolf's smug laughter was so contagious, I couldn't help but join the good humour. "You knew it right from the beginning, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. You rescued the city once from a dragon, with a Dunmer companion. I'll never forget how you shouted the gates apart."

_That_ was where I had seen this particular armour he and his friends wore before. The thieves had helped to fight the dragon when the guards had been essentially useless. I looked at him with new respect. "You guys helped, back then. I remember."

"Told you, we have some honour too. And even if we're safe down here, having the properties of our worthy fellow citizens burnt to ashes would be bad for business as well."

"_Our_ business has gone pretty well too, I reckon. And on top, you can just grab all the elven gear down there. It's worth a fortune."

"Aye, you held your part of the agreement. Didn't expect anything else, though." He beckoned over to Esbern who stood a bit aside, looking very confused and a bit peeved. "Is that guy really so important that they needed_ you_ to fetch him?"

"Honestly… I don't know. Yes, think so, or the Thalmor wouldn't have made such a hassle. We'll see." I rubbed my hand over my face and downed the tankard in a long gulp. "Thank you, Brynjolf. Gotta go now."

"You leave Riften right away?"

I should have, but I wouldn't. Most of all I needed a bath and then a night of sleep. I didn't know what would happen next and how Esbern would be able to help us, but the last days had been more than exhausting – first the dragon, then the assault on the Embassy, now this. I had to meet so many people during these few days, had been forced to work with them and trust them with my life, against every instinct. Delphine who told me what to do, Idgrod who had poked into my past, now these guys with their friendly curiosity... I felt pushed and engrossed and suddenly very tired. And Esbern's scowl only proved that he had demands as well I'd have to meet.

I gave Brynjolf a feeble grin. "No. We'll stay at the inn for the night. I need a bath." Neither another Thalmor brigade nor Alduin would keep me from that.

When I turned towards the exit, Esbern followed me eagerly, obviously glad to leave. But Brynjolf grabbed my wrist and held me back.

"Rune, show her the way," he said over his shoulder.

Surprise stood in the young Imperial's face, and the woman from earlier, the one who had poked her dagger into my ribs, gave him a scowl. "Bryn, you can't..."

But he cut her short. "Oh yes, I can. And no word to Mercer." He turned back to me. "Thanks for the business, lass. If you ever come to Riften again... or if you're ever bored... you know where to find me." His grin was boyish and open.

I arched an eyebrow at him. "I'll keep it in mind."

Rune led us through another large, circular room, looking exactly as depraved as the tavern, only that this was obviously the place where the thieves spent their free time when they weren't drinking. Narrow bunks were lined up tightly on the walls, a desk laden with parchments and scrolls and an empty shelf was tugged into a niche. Several doors led into what I could only suppose were the deepest parts of the sewers.

But Rune made straight for a brittle ladder, pushed the trapdoor on top open and climbed up into a dark, narrow alcove. Only very little light fell in from below, but he grabbed my wrist and guided it to a protrusion hidden in a stone ornament, smooth from years of use.

"Push here... and then press to the right."

Strangely silently, a massive stone plate slipped back and let in the sunlight. We stood in front of a small, unremarkable mausoleum in the middle of Riften's graveyard, the entrance closing with the soft scraping of stone on stone.

"Your back door?"

Rune nodded. "Bryn meant what he said, Dragonborn. You're welcome here."

I had no idea what I had done to earn this trust, and I couldn't imagine a situation where connections to the Thieves Guild would come handy, but one should never say never.


	3. One Step at a Time

I hated him. What a pretentious, ungrateful, horrible old man.

At least the feeling was mutual.

Esbern frowned deeply when we finally left the sewers. "Great, first drinking games with a bunch of thieves, and now this… why don't we simply stay here? After all, we're as good as dead already."

But I dragged him to the inn. "Keerava, we need rooms, meals and most of all a bath. Both of us."

Esbern made his stubborn face with the trembling lower lip. "Don't tell me what to do, I'm fine as I am. There's more important things to take care of."

I took my time, relished in the hot water and rinsed away all the mud and filth that had gathered on my skin. Everything was so much easier when I didn't smell myself… unless it was my travelling companion instead. Esbern outright refused the bath that was prepared for him, which made me refuse to eat at the same table with him. And _he_ dared to be offended about it!

"Ale? ALE!? We need nothing but some bread, cheese and water! What do you plan for this journey, have a party?" Really? _Really?_ By the gods, this man was a Nord, but he made a fuss that I packed some bottles of ale together with our rations? Rations I paid for? I couldn't believe it.

"Yes, Esbern, I know a nice cosy bear den where we're gonna spend the night. And I plan to get shitfaced drunk tonight while you keep watch over me. Any objections?"

"Falkreath? Why Falkreath? I wanna go to Whiterun! It's nearer, and it's nearer to Riverwood from there too, and it's nicer anyway! Why don't you ask _me_ before making such stupid decisions?"

I cringed at his whiny voice.

I glared at him. "I won't go to Whiterun, and if you think you have to get there, you'll have to do so alone. End of discussion."

He challenged every single decision I made, out of principle it seemed. Perhaps he thought it to be funny. Or perhaps he had simply no idea how annoying he was.

But now I had enough.

"Divines, I hope you don't intend to take that verminous cur with you?"

After less than a day in his company, I had ultimately enough of his whiny complaints, enough of his arrogant attitude and hollow threats, of his insults and his constant bickering. I pulled out my pouch, took out some septims and threw them at his feet.

"Here. Take your carriage wherever you want, we're done. This dog is more loyal, helpful and friendly than any human, and I'll choose his company any time over the one of a senile, presumptuous geezer like you. Good luck."

I called Snowback to my side and left the stables. If the world needed this man to be saved, it was probably better to let it end. His yell sounded after me, and I could vividly picture how he stomped his foot like a spoiled child without turning back. "You need me, woman, you need me much more than I need you! Nobody but me can help you!"

We'd see. He had the attention span of a 3-year-old and a very weird view on the reality around him, but he wasn't crazy enough not to make his way from Riften to Riverwood alone. Perhaps she could knock some sense into his twisted mind. I wasn't willing to look after and be insulted by him any longer.

But it didn't take long for the carriage with its lonely passenger to pass me. "Where are you heading now?" I called up to the driver.

"Falkreath, with a break shortly after Helgen!" he shouted back. I couldn't suppress a grin. Seemed someone was scared to spend the night alone, out here in the wilderness.

As I had suspected, Esbern waited for me not far after Helgen. What I didn't expect was the state of shock I found him in. He sat on a rock by the roadside, eyes wide open, staring into the distance and babbling hysterically into his beard. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did nobody tell me? Oh Delphine, how could you do this to me? After so many years! I'm not in the state for this… there's more important things… but this! Look at this! How horrible!"

I had no idea what he was was talking about until I followed his terrified gaze. The ruins of Helgen.

I bowed down to him. "Helgen, Esbern. Look at it closely, this was Alduin's first greeting to us mortals after thousands of years. Impressive, hm? Such a nice village, so many nice people. Nobody can say he wasn't thorough. Though, I should probably be thankful… after all, he saved my head from the imperial executor."

He lifted wide eyes to me.

"You? You're a criminal? And Alduin _saved_ you?"

I snorted in disgust. Of course he thought that, he was basically an employee of the Empire that had tried to behead me, had been all his life. Of course he would think that imperial justice was infallible.

"Yes," I spat, "and he also saved Ulfric. Alduin did a lot for Skyrim that day."

"Ulfric?"

"Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak of Windhelm. The rebellion leader."

"There's a rebellion?" he gasped.

Gods, he was so oblivious. "More than that. A civil war. And that's why we should get going. The folk living up there," I pointed towards the ruins, "have made themselves pretty comfortable, with no regular forces keeping them in check."

Was I cruel? Yes, I was, his terrified look proved it. I knew he had no idea what had happened outside of his cell during the last months and years. His head was so full of old stories that the last spark of common sense had probably fled ages ago.

What he had though were some very clear ideas about the Dragonborn. I wasn't sure what he expected - a shining knight, someone like Martin Septim who didn't hesitate a second to sacrifice himself, or perhaps even a reincarnation of Talos himself? That I didn't fit his ideas - that was his problem, not mine.

When I left the road in search for a suitable camping place, he just stumbled after me and kept quiet. Heavenly quiet. I made a fire, placed his bedroll near it and handed him his rations without a single word from him. And then he slept, restless and uneasy, with little whimpers and suppressed cries while Snowback and I kept watch.

* * *

"What do you think where we have to go now?"

I sighed. "Markarth, probably."

His expression was dumbfounded, offended and angry at the same time, something only Esbern managed. "How did you know? Don't you say you've read…"

"No, Esbern, no one has read your papers. It was just a lucky guess. Lately, I've travelled from Riverwood to Solitude to Riften and back to Riverwood. The next friggin' farthest place to send me would be Markarth. And then off to Winterhold, probably."

The divines bless Delphine's diplomatic training, or Esbern and I would've killed each other. I was seething when we finally reached Riverwood after another day in Esbern's company. The heavenly silence from his side was over as soon as he opened his eyes, but instead to complain directly, he went over to angry bickering that never addressed me personally, but was of course loud and clear enough not to be overheard. But I clenched my teeth and kept quiet.

My anger boiled ultimately over though when we entered the inn and his greeting was an immediate sulky lament about the outrageous treatment I had granted him. He and Delphine hadn't seen each other for decades, they had been close friends and thought each other dead, and he had nothing better to do but to complain? Ungrateful jerk.

But Delphine just embraced him closely while sending me a small smile over his shoulder.

"It's okay, Esbern," she muttered, "it's been too long since we met. Far too long. Good to see you safe and sound, friend." Was that a moist sparkle in the eyes of this tough, disciplined woman?

She led the old man down into her study, and when he discovered the tomes and notes she had gathered through the years, all his anger was suddenly forgotten. He pitched into the little library like a sabrecat into a dead elk.

I sat a bit forlorn at the counter when she came back, giving me a lopsided smile.

"He's exhausting, isn't he?" Her face showed understanding. I just sighed.

"He drove me crazy. He had to object to everything I did and said. And he's mean! I mean, really malicious. And I have no idea why. Perhaps because I don't meet his expectations of a Dragonborn… but it's a darned cheek how he treated me after I got him out of that rotten hole!"

She laughed at my indignation. "Yeah, I know how you feel. He's treated me the same, when I was young and a new recruit at the Blades Academy. He was already a veteran back then, one of the most important scholars and archivists of our organisation. And even back then he had already a reputation of being a tiny bit insane, with the way he delved into certain matters. The dragon prophecies, for example. Perhaps he wasn't insane, only visionary."

"Insane or visionary, in any case he's a jerk," I muttered. Delphine laughed and poured us some drinks.

"You have to be patient with him, Qhourian. He's an old man, and he's dedicated his whole life to something that was never much more than a myth. It's true, he isn't interested in you as a person, but that's because he's not really interested in anybody, and I'm afraid the years in seclusion haven't done much good to his… social competence. For him, you're the Dragonborn, that's all that matters, and of course you don't meet his expectations. But he'll get used to the thought. Don't let him annoy you."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. Just tell him to leave Snowback alone." My eyes burned with exhaustion, and I couldn't suppress a yawn. "You have a free room? I need some rest. I was forced to walk the whole way from Riften because your friend down there refused to take a bath, and then I stood watch the whole night to let him get some sleep."

She grinned heartily. "You're at least as stubborn as he, no wonder you clashed like that. I foresee a wonderful time together!"

We left Riverwood the next evening, but not before a long, boring lecture about the history of the Blades and their predecessors, the Akaviri Dragonguard, and a forgotten Blades outpost somewhere in the Reach. Esbern thought that he knew where it was exactly and hoped to find Alduin's Wall there, some kind of archive where the Blades' ancestors had preserved their accumulated dragon lore. If this archive was in fact a real wall or if we'd find something entirely different there, none of us knew. But it was the best clue we had in our search for something that would help against the Worldeater.

We separated for the first part of the journey. I still wasn't willing to go anywhere near Whiterun, but I understood that Esbern needed to take a carriage to preserve his strength. After all, despite his impressive magical power, he was physically quite frail. But even more did I need a bit of time on my own and a break from any company, except Snowback's of course. I found company, any kind of company, even if it was pleasant and self-sufficient increasingly tedious, and Esbern had nearly pushed me over the edge. Much easier to be responsible just for myself. I wasn't used to look out for others any more, and I didn't want to adapt to others' habits and tempers. The two days with the old scholar had strained my nerves much more than I wanted to admit, and I knew that I had overreacted when I left him alone.

And of course my thoughts wandered back to the year before, to my travels with Farkas and Athis and the others, when I had _never_ been alone. It was different back then... I had been different. I never felt like this with my shield-siblings, so tensed up, so irritable and vexed, although it was nearly impossible to find seclusion in Jorrvaskr. Of course we got into each other's hair and nerves from time to time, but it never lasted long. The bonds were too tight, we relied on each other with our lives, after all.

And even if I shied away from admitting it to myself – I missed it. I missed to be able to rely on someone else, missed someone having my back.

I had put this time behind me, but with my current habit of travelling criss-cross through the province it was probably merely a matter of time until my path would cross the one of the Companions again.

The thought of that encounter made me cringe. There was no way to brace myself for it, no way to prepare. I had no idea if they knew what had happened, what Vilkas had told them - but certainly not the truth. It would be awkward at best and horribly humiliating at worst. All I could do was to try to evade them as long as possible. And accept that it was over, that there was no way back. I could rely only on myself.

The hike through the pine forests of Falkreath Hold and along the shores of Lake Ilinalta calmed my nerves. Spring was really close now, a sharp, invigorating tang in the air that spoke of new life, of an awakening, but it would still take some weeks until the snow would be gone, plants would start to sprout and the wildlife would be back. Only some rogue mages in a half sunken fort at the lake caused us some trouble, but they stopped chasing us when I gained enough distance. As much as I wanted to rid the area of them, there wasn't time to fight now.

I met with the Blades at Old Hroldan, a lonely inn near the road to Markarth. If Esbern's predictions were correct, Sky Haven Temple wasn't far and lay secluded enough to be reachable only on foot.

But if I thought I could keep to myself and retreat early into my room, I was wrong. For a change, Esbern asked me personally to join them for the evening meal, and when we had finished and he asked Delphine to bring drinks for all of us, I knew this wasn't meant to be just a relaxing evening with acquaintances.

"Whatever you have to say... get over with it," I said when Delphine was back.

Esbern's gaze came to rest on me, strangely grave. "What do you know about Alduin? And about the prophecy that announces his return?"

The question caught me off guard, and the way he asked it, with cold, patient pretension, let me become defensive immediately.

"He's a badass bastard of a dragon. The oldest of them all, made by Akatosh himself. Or so he claims. He's called the Worldeater, because… well, because he's gonna eat the world, I suppose. Without chewing, probably." I snickered at the metaphor. He was big, but not _that_ big, of course.

Esbern rolled his eyes. "Delphine, have you taught her nothing? Supposed to eat the world?"

The woman just smiled. "I've been waiting for you, Esbern. I'm sure your explanations will be much more elaborate than mine."

He fetched a book from his knapsack, bound in black leather, with a silver, stylised dragon on its cover, well-thumbed and worn. I knew it, the _Book of the Dragonborn_, Farengar had another copy. It had been one of the first books he had given me to read after the dragon at the watchtower.

And I remembered that it had been underwhelming. A treatise about the covenant between Akatosh and St. Alessia and the Dragonborns of the past, about the lines of Emperors that had been like me, that it could be hereditary or not – of course it wasn't, at least not always, I was pretty sure that none of _my_ ancestors had been Dragonborn before. And only a short, vacuous paragraph about what it meant to be Dragonborn, more assumptions than facts and concluded by the obscure lines of the "Prophecy of the Dragonborn", incomprehensible like all prophecies.

But now Esbern skimmed pensively to the last page and read it aloud.

_When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world  
When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped  
When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles  
When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls  
When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding  
The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn._

When he was finished, his gaze was stern and piercing, nothing left of his frantic, enervating behaviour.

"You know what this means?"

I shrugged uncomfortably. "No. No idea."

He leant back in his chair, the book lying open between us.

"We don't know where this prophecy comes from, and in the end, it's not important. All that matters is that it has come true. Line for line, every single prediction. The usurpation of Jagar Tharn, the return of Numidium, the fall of the Tribunal, the Oblivion Crisis and, finally, the war raging in Skyrim. The Snow Tower lies kingless and bleeding."

He closed the book with a slow motion, as if he didn't need it any more. "And the Word-Eater has awoken." He looked at me with burning intensity. "Do you know what the last line means? _The Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn?_"

I swallowed heavily. "That I'm the last? That... the world won't need a Dragonborn any more when this is over?"

A tiny smile quirked his lips. "Correct. In every case. If you succeed... the dragons will be gone. And if you fail..." He rubbed his palm over his face and fell quiet.

Delphine shifted in her seat, an unhappy frown on her face. "Esbern. Get it out."

"What happens when I fail?" I asked in a whisper.

Esbern took a deep breath. "Akatosh is the god of time. He has _made_ time, and Alduin – his firstborn, or son, or aspect – has been here since its dawn. And now he is here to end it. He will stop this circle of time and start a new one." He was withdrawn deep into himself, deep into the knowledge he had gathered throughout his lifetime.

"Alduin is doom. What we see now, his return, the rising of his brethren, all the destruction and death they cause… all this is only an overture to what is to come. An attunement. He feeds on the souls of us mortals to strengthen his power, on the souls of the living, and on the souls of the dead. But all this is only preparation for his final assault."

He became quiet while his words slowly crushed into my mind, a force like a mountain delving into the sea, overwhelming, drowning me in their meaning. But he wasn't even finished.

"And if he prevails... it means the end of it all, annihilation, completely and irreversible. Nirn will cease to exist if he succeeds. Nothing will be left. He's the dragon from the dawn of time, returning now at its dusk. He _is_ the dusk of time, and it will cease to exist when he's finished with us."

I found myself locked in his eyes, bright and clear, his gaze seething with curiosity, a question and a challenge at the same time. He challenged me to understand.

This wasn't just about the end of the dragons. The end of the murdering, of burnt farms and scorched corpses and ruined villages. It wasn't even about the end of Skyrim. This was about the end of everything. The end of Nirn, the end of time, the end of eternity.

The sudden understanding clenched my chest with a force that stopped my breathing, the comprehension of everything I had learned during the last months. Farengar had told me, the Greybeards had told me, Delphine and Esbern had told me. They had _prepared_ me. But it had taken until now for me to understand.

Alduin was doom, and I was the one to stop him. No one but me.

It was impossible, too much for one person alone. It was too much for _me_. I didn't doubt Esbern's words, not for a second. I _knew_ he was right, and a barrage of questions ran in a maelstrom of blinding panic through my brain. Who carved the destiny of a mortal? Who had decided to put that burden on me? Who was responsible? I wanted a _culprit_, and I wanted to run away.

Only that I couldn't. Not with the fate of the world on my shoulders.

Self-pity, rejection, hopelessness, despair. And fear, most of all fear, sharp and biting. It washed over me, poured like acid through my veins and into the depths of my being, erased everything else. The purest, sharpest sting of fear, slicing my soul into tiny bits ready to be fed to the Worldeater, drowning everything in the darkness to come.

"Qhourian…"

Delphine's whisper beside me was barely audible as I sat slumped together in my chair, my face hidden in my palms. Qhourian. That was me, wasn't it? Only a mortal girl, child of a hunter, former whore, fugitive, prisoner, mercenary and outcast. Former daughter, sister, lover, friend and enemy. And now?

I had taken lives, saved lives and changed lives, more than I could count, more than I'd ever know. It was _my_ action, and my action alone. No destiny, no dragonsoul, just me and my decisions. I had done it to survive, because I _wanted_ to survive. Because I _liked_ to live, I wanted to live, despite all the pain and fear and sorrow this life had brought me. There was still more, and I liked this world I lived in.

If I wanted the world to survive, first of all I'd have to save myself.

_Let's have a test. A test of your confidence, which will also be proof of our confidence in you._

The memory of Arngeir's words kindled the tiny spark of resolve left under the flood. I had passed that test.

_You are Ysmir now, the Dragon of the North._

Yes, I was Ysmir, the Last Dragonborn, in a line with St. Alessia, Talos and Martin Septim, prophesied eras ago. But I was more than that, and most of all a girl that wanted to live. I had to save myself, and I had to believe in myself.

One step at a time. If I wanted to survive, never more than one step at a time.

When we left the inn next morning, I was tired out and wide awake at the same time, full of anticipation. Something hard had formed in my chest, a coil of determination I could hold on to, desperate and aching and still something I knew I could rely on.

All that counted now was Alduin's Wall. The next step.

* * *

"Shor's Bones, that's a lot of them…" Delphine muttered. We lay flat behind a rock above a cave entrance that we hoped would give access to Sky Haven Temple, and the camp below us was buzzing with the activity of people. Very strange people in a kind of armour I had never seen before and exotic headdresses made of fur, fangs and antlers. It looked like some kind of tribal garb.

"Forsworn," Delphine whispered, answering my questioning look. "They're some kind of… partisan group. They... their people, the Reachmen had a little kingdom here 25 years ago, but only for a couple of years until Ulfric Stormcloak drove them out of Markarth and freed the Reach for the Empire. You see," she pointed to a group of warriors below us, "they're no Nords, and they fight for the independence of their land and their people. Not sure what they hate more, the Empire or Ulfric."

Delphine was a wandering encyclopedia, and I was sure she could have lectured me for hours about the history of the Reach and its natives. I had heard about the Forsworn, but only as a special breed of bandits unique to Skyrim's far west. Nothing did I know about the history of this people, that it was a people of its own at all, and how closely it was intertwined with our own. But now wasn't the time to study them further; they blocked our way to the temple, and it didn't seem they'd let us pass friendly.

"If it were only the two of us, I'd say we wait till night to sneak inside. But that won't work with Esbern, so I'm afraid we'll have to fight our way in. And after all, we'll have to get out again as well."

I nodded. "Let's get going."

We had left Esbern - and Snowback as his guard - down at the road, but when we told him about the upcoming fight, he was eager to start right away. "Yes, let's get this scum out of the way. Don't want to wait any longer!"

Delphine gave him a sharp glance. "They're no scum, Esbern. They've lived here for ages and have the same rights on the land as the Nords. It's a shame they have to live like this." She looked up the steep path towards the camp. "And it's a shame we have to fight at all. I wish we could reclaim the temple without a bloodbath, but it won't be possible."

She looked concerned, but then she straightened herself and nodded at me.

"It won't be easy, they're known to be capable fighters, and they know terrible magic. Have you ever fought a hagraven?"

My eyes shot wide. "Yes."

She nodded contently. "We have to expect at least one. They're... dunno, it seems they have a pact, the hags and the Forsworn. They're their matriarchs, and they use their magic... pretty terrifying. Anyway, I'd prefer to lure them out of their camp, far too much cover inside with all the barricades and huts."

"There's a bottleneck on the path up there, we can use that. Esbern can hide between the rocks above and throw his fireballs from there, so we don't have to protect him."

Unfortunately, it became indeed a slaughter. Our tactic to lure them out was more than successful, and I wondered why. If they really were some kind of guerilla force, they should know how to make use of the terrain they operated in. But perhaps they were just too certain of their superiority when only the arrows of two archers felled their guards, or the derogatory term Madmen of the Reach wasn't entirely unjustified.

We had prepared our trap well, with rockfalls and a secure hiding place for Esbern. It also helped that their armours were more a sign of their affiliation than real protection. Delphine and I only had to go into melee when some of their warriors started to climb the steep slope, but they were easy to dispatch from our higher ground.

The camp was full of deadly silence when we finally entered. Apart from the staked animal heads all over the place which threw eerie long shadows in the evening sun, it looked like an utterly normal settlement - sturdy huts, sparsely furnished, cooking stations and camp-fires, a training area and a forge.

The cave entrance didn't lead directly to the temple, though, and Esbern let out a relieved sigh when we discovered that the Forsworn had only occupied the first chambers. Most of them had joined the fight outside and were already dead, and my dragonfire made short work of the hagraven and the small group of fighters guarding her.

Deeper in the tunnels, traps and puzzles blocked our way, all of them ancient and all of them construed around the idea of the Dragonborn. Esbern had fallen into a state of frantic agitation as soon as we entered the cave, all frailness and exhaustion forgotten, and the carvings on the wall fascinated him to no end. Every sign, every sculpture, every relief had to be examined closely, and he identified the different construction phases of the whole complex easily. When he stood in front of a large wall full of ancient scribbles for minutes, mumbling his insights into his scruffy grey beard, Delphine finally grabbed his wrist and dragged him along.

"You can come back later, Esbern, now let's find Alduin's Wall. That's why we're here, aren't we?"

The last room of the cave was adorned and sealed by a huge stone face that seemed to look directly into my heart. And in Delphine's, and in Esbern's. His eyes grew wide.

"Renan Cyrodiil! Look how the old Blades revered him." He approached the carving tentatively.

"And here it is. The old Akaviri magic." He pointed to a twisted circular pattern on the floor. "Look here, Dragonborn. This is the blood seal that will open the entrance to the temple. Renan Cyrodiil has consecrated it, and your blood will open it again. Your blood and nothing else."

Of course. The strange, desperate determination that had only hardened since our conversation the evening before, it woke with new vigour when I knelt down in the seal and drew my dagger. A swift stroke over my wrist, a drop of blood trickling to the floor and could feel it come to life, something changing in the stone under my knees and all around me, like a breeze without a source. The sound of stone scraping on stone marked the opening of the entrance to Sky Haven Temple.

It was indeed a wall. An enormous wall, spanning the whole long side of the main hall, covered in carvings to tell the story of the Dragon Wars, the Dragonguard and the Dragonborn prophecy. Its magnificence was visible even in the dim light falling in from above, and as soon as we entered, Esbern didn't waste any more time. Delphine's amused grin showed that she had heard his excited squeal as well.

While we followed him slowly in the sparse light of our torches, he already tampered around in front of the wall, looking at certain details, then taking back a few steps to admire it in its entirety.

"It's really Alduin's Wall, there's no doubt! And so remarkably well preserved! This must be the finest example of second era Akaviri sculptural relief still existent today…"

Delphine laid a hand on his shoulder to stop his pacing. "Easy, Esbern. At the moment we need information, not a lecture on art history. How about you start at the beginning?"

He calmed down a bit, then gestured us over to the far end of the panel.

"Of course, of course. Let's start here." He looked closely at the first part and seemed a bit astonished.

"I must confess, it's much less cryptic and metaphorical than I had feared. Well, for me at least. You wouldn't understand much of it, probably." He shook his head, deep in thought. He just stated a fact.

"Look here, this is the beginning, with Alduin and his Dragon Cult ruling over Skyrim. It was his first betrayal against Akatosh, his attempt to conquer Nirn for himself and his brethren."

Now I was also able to see that the whole relief was split in several sections, like chapters of a story. A firebreathing dragon loomed threateningly over tiny men, partly riding on horses, partly lying crumpled on the ground, more smaller dragons circling above them.

"And the Dragon War, the rebellion of mortals – of mankind - against their dragon overlords. It is said it was only Akatosh's – or Kynareth's – intervention who brought the knowledge of the dragon speech to mortals, the only weapon against their oppressors. But still men fell by the thousands until the dragons and their cult were finally overcome."

He took a step back, holding his torch above his head. His eyes gleamed like in a fever as he pointed at the centre of the panel.

"This is the centre. The turning point, Alduin's defeat. But first..." He beckoned to the last third of the relief. "The prophecy. Here... the Oblivion gate. The Red Mountain. It's all here. See... the sons of Skyrim, fighting each other. They knew, and they understood." He became quiet for a moment, then pulled himself together. His finger touched a man in Akaviri armour who faced the dragon, but he looked sternly at me. "And this... this is the end. This is now. The hero who will face the Worldeater at the end of times. This is you, Dragonborn."

The Akaviri of old had pictured a man, a mighty hero larger than life, people bowing before him, facing Alduin straight on with nothing but a sword and a shield and his voice.

No, this wasn't me. I didn't give him an answer, didn't react to his challenge, and after a few seconds of searching my face curiously, Esbern turned to the middle part again.

"Let's come to the crucial parts. Look here, this is Alduin again, but this time he's falling from the sky. For us, this is the most important scene of all. Let's see…"

He knelt in front of the wall, beckoned us to come closer, his frantic agitation back. The outlines of the figures seemed to move in the flickering light. I could feel the impatience in Delphine, but she didn't dare to disturb the old scholar's concentration.

"Look here," he pointed at an array of men at the bottom of the panel, "these are the ancient Nord heroes, lined up against their arch enemy. The Nord Tongues, Masters of the Voice. And this," his arms formed a huge circle over the upper part, "this is Alduin in the moment he's defeated. Perhaps the most important moment in Nord history." He looked at the wall in deep reverence.

Delphine cleared her throat. "And…?"

Esbern turned to her. "And… what?"

I interfered. "Esbern… does it show _how_ they defeated him?"

For a moment, he looked utterly confused. "Oh… yes, of course, does it? Just a moment, gimme just a moment…" he muttered.

After some seconds, he pointed excited to a certain, unremarkable ornament. "Here! Here it is! Oh, you can't read it, of course you can't, but this is the old Akaviri symbol for Shout. They used a Shout!"

He turned to us, his face shining with triumph. I sighed. Heavily and from the bottom of my heart. He was kidding, wasn't he? But his features showed that he was dead serious. Delphine looked as if she wanted to explode.

"Esbern… once more, very slowly… do you say this scene shows that they used a _Shout_ to defeat Alduin?"

"Yes! Yes, of course! It's incredible, isn't it?"

Her voice pitched at least an octave. "And what in Oblivion did _you_ think they would use to defeat him, those Nord Tongues, those Masters of the Voice? _Pebbles?_"

Esbern's face showed absolute lack of understanding why she yelled at him - the whole situation was so ridiculous, I couldn't help but break into hysterical laughter. We had found the most important cultural treasure of Nord history, if not of all of Tamriel, and it helped us… nothing. Absolutely nothing. _A Shout!_

Only when I cringed with a hiccup and tears flowed down my cheeks, Esbern seemed to realise that his excitement was a bit… premature. But I had to ask him nevertheless, breathless and between waves of giggles.

"Esbern… please... does this wall give us_ any_ hint which Shout they used? Any at all? Or is all of this just another of Akatosh's hilarious jests? By the gods, in the next world he can easily do Sanguine's job!"

His indignant look just caused another outbreak of laughter.

"Of course this is no joke! A bit more respect, please! Now we only have to find out which Shout they used!"

"Yes, because that's so easy. Do you know how many I know already, and I'm just a _bloody amateur_? Do you have any idea how many _they_ must have known?" I pointed at the tiny carved figures. Esbern seemed to collapse.

"But… but it must be something specific to Alduin! After all, this is Alduin's Wall, the archive of everything related to his downfall!" He seemed desperate. I wished for his sake the ancient Nords had been a bit more thorough in their filing of the really important facts.

"No, I don't think so. Look, Shouts don't grow on trees. The Shouts I use, the ones those guys here used and the ones the dragons use are all the same. They are _dragon speech_. Can you give me a single sensible reason why the dragons should create a specific Shout to kill their master?"

While Esbern and I argued Delphine showed her practical side, put torches into every holder mounted on the walls and pulled some food out of her pack. Now she called us over to the long stone table.

"Let's have a break, you two. I'm sure we will come up with something, later. Here," she filled some ancient silver goblets with a golden liquid, "Firebrand wine. I brought it only to celebrate this moment."

I grabbed a piece of bread and some cheese. "Thank you, Delphine. Though it doesn't seem there's much to celebrate yet."

"Oh, I disagree! We're all alive, we found the Wall, and we found an excellent hideout to start rebuilding the Blades. If you ask me, that's more than enough reason." Her smile was a bit lopsided, but she cheered me up nevertheless.

Esbern didn't eat, and even less did he drink. Instead he rummaged through his pack, tore out papers and notes and books. Soon he was enwrapped in a huge tome, flipping back and forth through the pages as if he searched something special. I eyed him curiously, and it didn't take long until the triumphant grin came back to his face.

"Here," he screamed, poking a certain page, "I knew there was something we overlooked. I overlooked, to be precise, because of course _you_ can't overlook something you don't even know it exists." He took a deep breath.

"This is a treatise about the Dragon Wars, written by Torhal Bjorik. Most of it is irrelevant, but listen to this:

_When the populace rebelled, the dragon priests retaliated. When the dragon priests could not collect the tribute or control the masses, the dragons' response was swift and brutal. So it was the Dragon War began._

_At first, men died by the thousands. The ancient texts reveal that a few dragons took the side of men. Why they did this is not known._

Ha! You see? Some dragons fought with us mortals against their master! Too bad these ancient texts he refers to have been lost, but one of these renegades must have made this specific shout to defeat Alduin!"

This was new, but it didn't mean it was any less crazy. I rubbed my eyes. "Perhaps, yes. So my next step will be to go out there and find a _friendly_ Dragon? Wouldn't it be much easier to start simply a second Dragon War and convince some of those Alduin has already revived to make me an new Shout to drop him?"

Goodbye, Nirn, it was nice to have known you.

Delphine frowned at me. "Don't get silly, Qhourian. This isn't funny."

Oh yes, it was. _Incredibly_ funny. I was sure the gods cracked themselves up about us. But she still tried to make sense of all this insanity.

"Esbern's probably right that there has been a specific Shout to defeat Alduin, or it wouldn't have been explicitly mentioned on the wall. None of us knows anything about such a special Shout. I really hoped not to have to involve them into this, but my only clue now are the Greybeards."

Her scornful frown surprised me. It was a good idea. It was the only idea. And she didn't have to climb the 7000 steps.

"What do you have against the Greybeards?"

She shot me an irritated glance. "Nothing effective, unfortunately. No, they're just… a bunch of old men sitting on their mountain and caring a shit if the world collapses around them. They and their cowardly Way of the Voice… they have the power, but they always let others do the bloody work." She breathed heavily, clearly agitated. "I tell you, they won't be of much help now either unless you force them. They've done nothing yet, nothing to stop Alduin, nothing to stop the damned war. They just hide up there and listen to the sky."

"But Delphine, that's not true. They recognised me as Dragonborn. And they taught me, they trained me. I would know nothing without the Greybeards!"

She crossed her arms over her chest, looking as if she couldn't believe I was so ignorant. "Of course they recognised you, they had to if they wanted to gain influence on the Dragonborn! Don't be so naïve, Qhourian… they're scared of you. They're afraid you could use your powers. Did they tell you what your destiny is? Did they tell you anything about Alduin or the prophecy? No? No, of course not, and not because _they_ don't know, but because they don't want _you_ to know. They don't want you to use your power for a cause they in their endless wisdom have decided to be wrong."

Her disgust was obvious, and it seemed to be something she didn't want to argue about. But although Arngeir had in fact warned me not to use my powers unjustly, I had the feeling I had to defend them. And myself. "Perhaps they have a point. Power can be abused. And it's so easy to make mistakes… What if I fail? What if I make the wrong decisions?"

Her face became softer. "You won't fail, Qhourian. Everybody in your shoes had to learn to use his power. Those that didn't… nobody remembers them. There's always a choice, and there's always a risk. But the worst you can do is doing nothing."

I wouldn't do nothing. No matter how high the stakes were... I had come too far to give up now. And despite Delphine's accusations, the thought of another visit to High Hrothgar was appealing. I could use a bit of quiet now. Time and silence to come back to myself.

But Skyhaven Temple was a far too interesting place to leave immediately, and although Esbern didn't seem to like it at all that I rummaged through ancient Blades' propriety, I explored it thoroughly. Delphine was right, it was the perfect hideout for her organisation, in its seclusion and perfect state of preservation.

When I found the old weaponry and armoury, located deep in the bowels of the temple, it looked as if the last Blades had only left a few hours prior. At least a dozen of the distinctive armours, unmistakably the same type the people on Alduin's Wall wore, were neatly seated on their poles, and dozens of the slightly curved typical Akaviri blades and their corresponding shields were mounted on the walls. A single sword caught my attention. It was the most beautiful weapon I had ever seen, glittering with a faint magic, blade and hilt inlaid with plain ornaments from pure gold, the grip itself smooth from ages of use. Only the leather wrapping had to be renewed.

"What is this, Delphine? Looks like something special."

The woman's eyes grew wide like saucers when I presented the weapon to her. She took it from my hands reverently, caressed the hilt like an old friend. Then she looked at me with a warm smile.

"That's Dragonbane, Qhourian. The legendary weapon of old, the blade countless Dragonborns have wielded before you. It has its name for a reason, no weapon is as effective against dragons as this one. I can't believe it's been kept here. Everybody thought it's been lost with the sacking of the White Gold Tower."

She handed the weapon back to me.

"Take it, Dragonborn, it's yours by right."

The sword in its simple leather scabbard nestled against my hip as if it belonged there. I'd have to learn to use it efficiently, the long blade so different from the short sword I was used to, but I was glad to take it.

"I will make good use of it, Delphine. Promised."


	4. Surprises

It was a long, lonely journey from Sky Haven Temple to High Hrothgar, and I relished every moment of it. Avoiding roads and settlements I slowly made my way eastwards, hunted when necessary, camped wherever I was when the sun set, enjoyed my independence. And I was thankful that Delphine had provided me with everything I needed, from a small tent and warm clothes to enough rations to take me to Ivarstead.

During the last weeks I had more consciously than ever observed how nature slowly came back to life, and it seemed that Snowback enjoyed the change of season even more than I. He chased every movement and every sound just for the fun of it, downright bursting with energy and joy, and I let him, his enthusiasm the perfect expression of my own feelings. I estimated that he had his first birthday this spring, and I was thankful for the company he had provided during the last months, through this endless, harsh winter. With our ongoing training he had become an awesome, reliable companion, fierce and loyal, courageous and disciplined when it mattered, but at the same time still so wild and exuberant that his capers left me more than once with sides hurting from laughter. I wasn't sure if I would have been able to survive the winter without him, without his living warmth and his fidelity. It was good that we had found each other.

But when we reached Ivarstead, I left him with Wilhelm at the inn, to drag him through the icy heights towards High Hrothgar would have been nothing but cruel. And when I started the endless climb and passed by the ancient tablets, I realised that this was the first time I made this way alone. Farkas had teased me mercilessly during the first climb, when I was still so confused and scared to death about this whole Dragonborn stuff, and had been stern and determined the second time. I remembered how miserable he had felt up there, his injury and how naturally the Greybeards had welcomed him later.

This time I was all on my own – I was still confused and scared, but I had learned so much in the meantime. Certainly, all this knowledge and all these experiences had to be good for something. And this time, alone and with no one to have regards for, I took the time to read the emblems along the way. They told another story of the Dragonwars and of the founding of the Greybeards, though I understood only half of the cryptic sentences. And they spoke about the failure of the Tongues, and why Jurgen Windcaller chose restriction and silence for his Way of the Voice.

I could understand how these words that spoke of events eras ago could give the pilgrims of the path food for thought and new insights. That these events were worth to be remembered. I wasn't so certain if this wisdom was meant for me, though. To think of failure was something I couldn't afford.

It was already dark when I reached High Hrothgar, the sun still setting far too early for my liking, but Arngeir awaited me in the main hall - somehow he always seemed to sense when I was coming. But his welcome wasn't quite as cordial as I remembered, and his expression was set when he led me into the cosy quarters where I had already spent so much time.

"Rest now, Dovahkiin," he said curtly, "we'll speak tomorrow."

Confused, I stared at the empty doorway. I didn't know him like that – Arngeir was never a really affable man, but so far he had at least given me the feeling that I was welcome in High Hrothgar. I missed that feeling now.

And then I realised that the chamber was only prepared for one person, as if they'd known I'd come alone. Perhaps he was disappointed that Farkas wasn't here now? Despite the two men being complete and absolute opposites, I had the feeling that they respected each other, especially during our last visit.

And when I lay down on the stone platform that was softly cushioned with furs and blankets, my gaze lingered on the other one at the opposite wall, now empty and cold. Farkas had been here with me during my first visit, and although he was wary and cautious towards the Greybeards, he had helped me to come to terms with all the overwhelming new ideas I was confronted with. He had healed here after the attacks of the sabrecats, and here he had bared his heart to me and made the promise on which I had relied for so long.

I would never have come where I was now without him. Nearly astonished I realised that I wished he was here with me now. That I missed him.

That night I dreamed of a wolf, fighting by my side against Alduin.

"What can I do for you, Dragonborn?" Arngeir had joined me as soon as I had forced down some stale bread and hard cheese with a mug of hot tea, and he didn't waste any time.

I had to gather my thoughts for a moment. I would have liked to indulge myself in the silence of High Hrothgar, to meditate with the Greybeards and turn my back on the world, if only for a few days. But first, I had to know where he stood. If he could – and if he was willing – to share his knowledge with me. If the hostility between the Blades and the Greybeards was mutual, I had to be careful and diplomatic, and I knew I was bad at both.

"I'm stuck, Master, and I hope your wisdom can help me to go on." A bit of flattery couldn't hurt, though I doubted the man would be very susceptible to it. He gave me an encouraging nod to go on.

"During the last months I've learned a lot. For example that it's Alduin the Worldeater who revives his brethren, and that he's come back to fulfil the prophecy about the end of time. And that I have to stop him."

Not a good start, as his frown and angrily narrowed brows clearly indicated. My heart beat with sudden anxiousness.

"Where did you get to know all this?"

I squirmed. "Is that relevant? Isn't it more important that it's true?"

His gaze was icy. "Haven't you learned anything here, Dovahkiin? For example, that the intention is at least as important as the action itself and the result? So, answer my question: Who told you about these things?"

I sighed. "The Blades. We found Alduin's Wall, it's recorded there."

"The blades!" The fury flashing through his eyes was fearsome, but he controlled himself after only a split second. But his voice had a power to it that was only a breath away from shaking the walls around us.

"I should have known. Always meddling in things they don't understand, and their reckless arrogance knows no bounds. What have they told you, Dragonborn? That it's your destiny to stem the tide after your wishes? And how convenient it is that _your_ wishes are the same as _theirs_?"

This was an outbreak I didn't expect. No diplomacy would help here, and the way he degraded Delphine and Esbern just as much as me and everything I had done so far made me angry.

"Yes, that's what they told me. That I'm the only one who can stop Alduin, the only one who can prevent the end of time. But that you think I'm a child who has to be told what its wishes should be, who cannot make up its own mind… I thought you knew me better."

His eyes were cold like the dark stone around us. "You're nothing but a tool in their hands, Dragonborn."

"I am no tool!" I flared up, furious. No one would call me a tool. No one would use me. "You know exactly what this means, the reappearance of Alduin. Why didn't _you_ tell me?"

He didn't answer my question, and it was answer enough. His voice was carefully controlled now. "What do you need from me, Dovahkiin?"

I restrained myself, clenching my hands in my lap. "The Tongues of old have defeated him, and they used a Shout. A special Shout." I lowered my voice. "I want you to teach me this Shout, Master Arngeir."

A small, completely mirthless smile quirked his lips. "You want me to teach you? That Shout was used once before, and here we are again. Do you see the irony?"

I lowered my head under his unrelenting stare, rubbed my temples nervously. We didn't know how Alduin had come back, perhaps he had indeed returned from the dead. But we did know _why_, and that had to be enough. "There must be a way to defeat him once and for all. The ancient Tongues knew so much more than I, and you're the keeper of their knowledge. Please... I can't believe you want him to destroy everything." I begged. I couldn't believe I begged. His voice became a touch softer, but his face remained stern and unyielding.

"What I want is irrelevant, and perhaps it's even irrelevant what _you_ want. Have you ever considered that Alduin cannot be stopped? That he shouldn't be stopped?" He leant back in his chair, shaking his head.

I stared at him, dumbfounded. He couldn't be serious. Irrelevant? I had done nothing but to explore myself since that first bloody dragon in Whiterun and tried to do the right things. Everybody told me it was my destiny to deal with Alduin, that I was only here because he was too, and I had done nothing but to cope with this. And I had gladly taken every bit of advice and every bit of help others had offered. Including his, and now he the gall to tell me nothing of all this mattered at all?

"You seriously wanna tell me that I shall let the world end because there's a hypothetical possibility that it's meant to? Since when do _you_ decide when doomsday comes?"

He was eerily calm. "Explore yourself, Dovahkiin, and you will find your answer. We have taught you everything you have to know, but you will have to find the way of wisdom on your own. Without others imposing their influence on you."

He sat there, so complacent, so certain to be in the right, so oblivious to his own hypocrisy, and my temper flared up, blood rushing to my cheeks and heat coiling in my throat, ready to spill out.

I forced it down with grinding teeth.

"What about _your_ influence, Arngeir? And _you_ dare to tell me to free myself from the influence of others?"

He still kept this calmness, this incredible arrogant calmness.

"Return to the path of wisdom, Dovahkiin. Then, and only then will you find what you're looking for. Then, and only then will we help you."

I knew a dismissal when I saw one, and Arngeir had just kicked me out of High Hrothgar. Not that it was hard to leave, seething with fury and helplessness I wished him to Oblivion when I slammed the heavy doors shut behind me.

And when an impertinent frost troll came running up the path towards me, screeching and drumming his chest in an impressive display of strength and bloodlust, I shouted him down the slope of the mountain, watched with triumphant satisfaction how his body fell, flailing, tumbling in a cloud of whirling snow until it came to rest as a red blotch on a protruding rock.

Take this, Arngeir. _This_ is how the voice is to be used. Way of wisdom? Way of bullshit.

Stupid old men with their stupid principles. Delphine had been right. They had a responsibility too, with all their power and knowledge. I clearly felt that Arngeir knew the answers to my questions, that he knew exactly what had happened at the end of the Dragonwars. I couldn't believe that he outright refused to help me, and even less the hostility he had suddenly shown.

Someone should drag him down his bloody mountain and show him one of the destroyed farms, the burnt corpses, the razed settlements. And perhaps the laughter of children, the contentment of a simple craftsman, the love of parents. It seemed he had lost every sense for reality, for the real life taking place down here in the real world.

But I knew this beforehand, didn't I? Wasn't that exactly what I longed for when I visited them, to escape reality, to drown in the peace and silence, the changelessness and eternal wisdom that ruled that place? It was a treacherous escape.

And now even this escape was locked to me.

One step at a time. But what when there's nowhere to go any more? When all ways are blocked?

"Mead, Wilhelm. Lots."

It was late afternoon again when I returned to Ivarstead, but the inn was empty as always. Vilemyr Inn was never as lively and busy as the Bannered Mare in Whiterun, most of the patrons local farmers and workers. Perhaps the reason why Wilhelm was always so pleased when I came in.

"Already?" he asked with a smirk as I dropped on a stool at his bar, "it's not even dark yet."

"Don't ask," I grunted. "I either have to split some skulls or drink myself into a stupor _right now_, and I reckon you prefer the latter. Did you know those guys up there are bloody bastards?"

"Never had the pleasure to meet them," he chuckled. "But so far you always seemed to be quite fond of them."

"So far, yes. Ah, forget it." I downed the first mug in one long gulp. It was comfortable to sit at this bar, watching Wilhelm polish his goblets, his quiet friendliness never pressing me into a conversation. Really good inn-keepers like him had some kind of inherent awesomeness, knew exactly how to deal with their patrons.

"You know, Wilhelm…," I said pensively, "the worst is that I've no idea what to do now. Where to go. Perhaps I'll just stay here, at least for a few days."

He smiled, his warm, understanding smile. I didn't think he really understood what was going on, but it felt good. "It would be a pleasure, Qhourian. You know I've always a free room for you." It also felt good how he just called me by my name. My mug was never empty that evening, and although he fed me some pieces of apple pie in between, I worked myself slowly into a very comfortable and most of all relaxed state of tipsiness. The Greybeards could go to Oblivion and take the Blades and the Companions with them. I didn't care. I would just stay here and let Wilhelm take care of the rest.

Some more residents of the little village came in for their evening drinks, I heard the door of one of the guest rooms clap, but I didn't mind the friendly faces around me as long as they left me alone.

"Wilhelm, aren't there any more ghosts around? Or anything else that needs taken care of? I'd have nothing against some useful work."

He shook his head with a smile, his hands busy with a cloth cleaning his counter, his eyes slipping away from my face to a point behind my shoulder. "It won't do you no harm to relax for a bit. You don't look as if you've eaten or slept enough lately." He nodded lightly to greet another guest, somebody slipped on the stool beside me.

"But I have work for you, Companion."

A long bundle dropped in front of me. A voice I would recognise everywhere.

Aela.

For a moment I sat like frozen, my heart hammering frantically in my chest and my mouth becoming dry, unable and unwilling to grasp the reality that sat beside me. But I felt her gaze on me, her's and Wilhelm's, and I couldn't bear it for long. My hands were clenched around my mug when I turned stiffly.

"You're harder to hunt down than a slaughterfish, you know that?" she said casually, as if we sat in the Bannered Mare for a drink. Her features were stoic when she searched my face. "You look horrible."

My voice croaked. "You too." She really did. Her auburn mane was a tangled, dull mess, she was frighteningly thin, all bones and angles, her muscles looking as if they were carved from stone, and her face… only huge eyes, an unhealthy fire gleaming in them, her unmistakable warpaint over pointy cheekbones and the thin line of her lips.

And all that nice drunkenness was gone for good. What a shame. I swallowed thickly and took a long gulp to wash the lump out of my throat.

"I suppose it's no accident that you're here, isn't it?"

Her laughter was bitter. "Not even a little bit of smalltalk, Qhouri? Straight to the point? Nothing to get used to each other again?"

"I don't have to get used to you," I said curtly. And it was true. I had known that something like this would happen sooner or later, and better her than anyone else, accidentally or not. That she showed up now, in exactly this moment… it was so wonderfully ironic, I could nearly hear the snicker of the Divines in the back of my mind.

She looked incredibly weary. "Of course it's no accident. We spent a fortune on bribes on every single innkeeper in Skyrim to track you down. But not everybody is as reliable as Wilhelm, and if we got a message that you've been somewhere we were always too late."

He answered her look with a shy smile. "Hope you're not angry, Qhouri, but I sent the courier as soon as you left for High Hrothgar. You had to come back here after all, if only for your dog. I don't like how you go after these dragons all on your own."

He could have just told me. Or asked. But of course he knew better than me what was good for me, everybody obviously did, and now it was too late. I gave him a glowering look, took my drink and changed over to an empty table. Aela followed and took the seat opposite of me.

"What do you want, Aela?"

A lopsided grin appeared on her lips, barely visible, a glimpse of the huntress she used to be. But it faded and only left a grey gaze hard as diamonds, shiny and cold.

"I wanted to see you with my own eyes, and I wanted to remind you that you're still a Companion. I want you to listen. I want you to know what you left behind. You owe that to me. And..."

I interrupted her. "I owe you nothing," I said harshly, watching her full of distrust as she sat there, taut like a drawn bowstring, impossible to ignore. The deep creases between her brows and on both sides of her mouth only deepened.

"Oh yes, you do. You have a responsibility with the Companions." She lifted a hand, fending off my outraged reply. Her tone was clinical and shallow. "And most of all I want to know why. Why in Oblivion you didn't come back."

I paled, cold sweat damping my palms. She had no idea why I didn't.

"I couldn't," I pressed out. A lump of ice formed in my chest, made it hard to breathe. I couldn't relive all that. Not with her, not for her.

For a moment she was quiet, and then comprehension crept slowly into her features. "Divines," she groaned. "You thought... you think I don't know? You thought Vilkas would lie to us? That he _could_ lie to us?" Suddenly her face became soft. "Listen to me, Qhouri. Please." She didn't wait for my answer, spoke on hastily. "He came back from that rescue job more than a week late... barely himself. And he only told Kodlak what had happened... what he had done, and then he vanished. Nobody has seen him since. Athis and I went to the wreck to search for you, but all we found were the shreds of your armour, the things you left behind and this."

She opened the bundle between us with nervous gestures. It was my mace. My Skyforge mace.

"Most of us didn't believe you survived, not after that attack, not in the middle of winter. And when Skjor was killed by the Silver Hand and we held his funeral, I know some of us cried for you as much as for him. But Kodlak never gave up hope, and neither did Farkas, and Jarl Idgrod's message finally proved them right. That and the news from Kynesgrove. After it we renewed our efforts to find you, and here I am."

We stared at each other for minutes, stared at the other's face, so familiar and still so alien, took in the changes and the marks of the past months. A stranger was sitting there, her face vacant, void of all feelings, and still she had effortlessly shattered my world again. A stranger who was my shield-sister at the same time, someone to trust, so frighteningly familiar.

What she had revealed in these few sentences... it was too much. I didn't even realise that tears ran down my cheeks and smeared my warpaint to dark streaks until she reached over the table and brushed her thumb over my face.

"Now you look a bit like me," she said.

"I'm so sorry, Aela," I whispered, "I'm so sorry for Skjor."

For a split second her face showed a despair I never thought she could feel, much less express. But it was gone as soon as it flared up, and her control was back.

"Don't be sorry for Skjor, he's hunting in eternity now. We have to care for the living." She took a deep breath.

"Thank you for listening, Qhouri. I will leave you alone now. But I wish you were still here tomorrow." And with that she was gone, vanished into the night outside with a blast of cold air, leaving only her half-emptied bottle and my mace behind. The badge of my membership.

And for a moment, I wondered how it felt to surrender humanity and give in to the instincts of the beast. To leave everything behind, guilt and hate, love and friendship and responsibilities, the whole complicated web of human relations. And knowledge... how it was to lose oneself in blessed beastly ignorance. And I wondered what she found right now, chasing her prey, hunting and killing, if it was freedom and strength or just an escape that hurt even more when she had to come back.

Jorrvaskr... Jorrvaskr had been locked away in a sealed chamber of my mind, everything I had left behind. The bad... and also the good. At least I had admitted to myself that there had been good, much of it. That I missed the companionship and the feeling of having a home. But even knowing that I couldn't avoid them forever, I had not dared to think about the consequences.

Now they were here, and the decisions I had to make towered in front of me like the Throat of the World. The Greybeards had thrown me out, and going back to Skyhaven Temple was pointless. I was stuck.

But Aela had said I was still a Companion. During this night when sleep fled me, Masser tinting my room in reddish light and I knew Aela was out there, was here in Ivarstead, that she had come for and was now waiting for me... I realised that I couldn't deny her. Because she was still my shield-sister, had never stopped to be, but mostly because I had a load of questions only she could answer.

Vilkas was gone. Skjor was dead. And I had to know what I had left behind.

She was waiting for me next morning, frowning when she saw me come out of my room, massaging my temples. Someone had driven a rusty nail into my brain, right behind my left eyebrow. I didn't know if it was the mead or... everything else.

I got a cup of hot tea and a bowl of porridge from Wilhelm and joined her, but I didn't dare to break the silence. I didn't know how, and her quiet presence made me nervous.

"You need to hear it, don't you?" she asked finally. There was an edge in her voice that made me jerk.

"What?"

"That I want you to come home with me. That we need you there. All of us, but some of us more than others."

No. That wasn't what I wanted to hear. "You know exactly that's the fastest way to chase me out of that door."

But Aela didn't give up that easily. Her face was serious, but her eyes had lost a bit of the stonen harshness from the evening before. "I still don't understand... why you didn't come home. How you could think he'd get away with that."

I bit my lip, averted my eyes. "It's Vilkas' home too."

"Was." Her scrutiny was enervating. "You didn't trust us to deal with this. With you, and him."

"I suppose I didn't." Most of all didn't I trust myself to deal with it. Just the thought to have to, to meet that man, to answer the inevitable questions sent a shiver of dread down my spine. I took a deep breath to calm myself. "I knew he'd go back... and I couldn't face that. I still can't." I concentrated on my spoon that stirred figure-eights through my porridge.

"You don't have to. We just want you to come home."

It became quiet again, and then I snorted out a bitter laughter. "I'm stuck, you know? The Greybeards kicked me out of High Hrothgar, and I have no idea what to do now."

A short grin flared over her face. "Really?"

"Yeah. Arngeir tried to tell me what to do, and I called him a hypocrite."

"That's gross." She tilted her head. "Perhaps you need a break from being Dragonborn. Do some simple, honest work for a change."

I swallowed a spoonful of lukewarm porridge. It tasted like sawdust. "Tell me, Aela. Tell me what I left behind."

The hard lines around her mouth were back. She leant back in her chair, closed her eyes shortly. And when she opened them again, she fixed me with burning intensity. "Okay." She gathered herself. "Things have... changed. Kodlak has secluded himself completely. He was the one who sent you on this job... and with Skjor, he lost one of his oldest friends. Now he has stopped to care for anything but his blasted research. The whelps are doing fine, mostly. Just overworked... well. The last months have left their marks. Athis has taken over a lot of stuff, but they cope and work their asses off. And Farkas... he isn't himself any more. He barely works, spends a lot of time in Morthal... and when he's in Whiterun, he's out hunting. More often than I, and that means something. For a time... before we knew that you lived, I was afraid he'd go crazy. Or feral."

My breath hitched. "Does he hold me responsible... that his brother is gone?" I asked lowly.

"I don't know." She paused for a moment. "All I know is that he suffers. But he doesn't talk to me."

He had lost so much. This was what Idgrod had meant. "I can't help him, Aela."

She snorted. "Oh yes, you could. I know you could if you wanted to." She shrugged and continued. I had asked, and now she wouldn't spare me the rest. "With you and Vilkas gone and Farkas not much help... we were spread thin before, but then it became impossible to keep up with the contracts. Skjor and I... we started to take jobs alone. It was stupid, but... it became just too much. And once, he tracked down some Silver Hands and thought he could take on them all on his own." She clenched her jaw. "At least he sent a note about his plans. At least we could retrieve his corpse when he didn't come back." She made a noise of grief and anguish, and then she shoved back her chair and went to the bar. For endless moments, she just stood there with her back to me, thin and small, her forehead propped into her palms.

And for a moment, I was overwhelmed with guilt. Her pain that she hid behind this iron wall of self-control clenched my chest with an iron fist. So much loss, for all of them. And all of this just because... something between a sob and a whimper escaped me.

She shot around, glaring at me. "Don't you dare!" she shouted furiously, Wilhelm and the few other guests startling and staring at us. I jerked back violently, watched with held breath how she strode with long steps through the room, lips pressed into a thin line until she stood before me, palms propped flat on the table. Suddenly she didn't look small any more... more than ever like the huntress I knew. "Don't you dare to blame yourself," she snarled. She looked as if she'd hit me for a single false word. But then she only exhaled deeply, rubbed her hand over her face and sat down. Slowly the atmosphere relaxed again.

"I've tried to keep the whole lot together, but... well, I could use a helping hand."

"You want me to come back to take care of the workload."

"Yep." Her grin was twisted. "And to bring Farkas back on track. And because we missed you." She leant over towards me. "And most of all because you're a Companion. _We will stand at her back, that the world may never overtake us._ It means something, Qhouri."

Tears gathered in my eyes, and I blinked them away frantically, trying to hide my face behind my cup. Of course it didn't work, her smile gentle. "I missed you too," I whispered. "It took some... a long time till I admitted it to myself, but I missed you."

"I hoped that would be the case."

"But we can't turn back time. We can't just continue where we were - I was a mess then, and I know I drove you crazy. But I'm still a mess. I'm stuck and confused and don't know what to do now, and if - and that is only hypothetical - if I came back, it were only because I've nowhere else to go."

"Perhaps you haven't much to give. But I haven't much to offer either, except the promise that we will keep going. But Jorrvaskr is still the one place you can always return to. Or hide in, if necessary. And there's still the sword-arms of your siblings, friends to share your burdens... and Tilma's cooking. You look as if you needed that the most."

Somehow, she made me laugh. "You're cruel, Aela, you know that?" I had no idea she was so manipulative, that she'd figure me out that easily. She had hunted me down like her prey. But perhaps I wanted to be hunted down. Perhaps I wanted to be forced and others to make this decision for me.

Her smirk was cheeky and predatory at the same time. "I do my best, and I'm not one to give up that easily. Think about it, Qhouri." She shoved away her bowl and stretched herself. "And now… I've taken the day off, the gods know I earned it. Wanna join me to the hot springs?"

"A vacation?" I couldn't imagine her doing nothing. Being lazy. And... the idea was tempting, but I hesitated. It was obvious that now that she had tracked me down, she wouldn't let me out of her claws again. But I was torn between the comfort of her company, of the feeling that for once, I didn't have to take care of myself, and the commitment that came with it.

"A mini-vacation," she nodded, and then she narrowed her eyes on me. "You don't have to come. But if you don't, you force me to hunt you down again, and I've really enough on my plate."

"You wanna make me feel guilty?"

"If I have to," she smirked. Ruthless, that woman. And irresistible.

Aela set a fast pace, and we cut across the country first in eastern direction, through Darkwater Crossing and then turned north. When we passed the Eldergleam Sanctuary and she saw my longing gaze, she smiled. "Your sapling has already the first buds. Danica sits on it like a broody hen." It made me laugh. A little piece of Whiterun's everyday life. I was glad to hear it.

Not much later I saw a column of smoke in the distance, the air clear, windless and already reeking faintly of rotten eggs, and Aela made a beeline for it. Now I was really curious – as far as I knew, there was nothing remarkable in this area except one of the standing stones and perhaps one or another bandit hideout. But no enemies were waiting for us. A makeshift camp was set up next to one of the steaming, milky-blue pools, and Njada, Ria and Tilma were basking lazily in the warm water.

And they had seen us coming before I realised where she had led me, Ria squealing and bouncing excitedly through the shallow pool. She looked younger than ever without her armour and warpaint, wet hair flying loosely around her dimpled cheeks. "You did it, Aela!"

I turned slowly and speechless to her. She gave me a twisted grin. "Surprise, Qhouri. Don't be mad, please. Let's just have a girl's day." Dropping her pack where she stood and already unfastening the straps of her armour, she scowled playfully at Ria. "And you stop looking as if you just won a bet."

Even Tilma laughed out loud, especially when I kept standing at the edge, gobsmacked. I couldn't believe she had plotted this. That _they_ had plotted this.

Njada lay prone on the water, her arms propped on the edge at my feet and her head tilted into her neck, gazing up to me with eyes squinted against the sun. "It's good to see you, Qhouri. We were… worried," she said with a small smile. And it was the honest welcome of this usually so tight-lipped woman that made the dam break. I laughed and sobbed and peeled myself out of my armour as fast as possible, and then Aela just pushed me into the hot water. I emerged with a squeal, bright laughter around me.

"What are you all doing here?"

"What does it look like?" Aela snickered. "Get away from work and all those guys at Jorrvaskr of course. Gods know we all need a day of stress relief. Especially Tilma." She smiled warmly at the old woman who chuckled in return.

"I daren't imagine in what state the hall will be when we return. Imagine Brill cooking for the boys!"

"They won't cook, Tilma, don't worry," Njada said drily. "They will be entirely happy with your sweetrolls, some cheese and bread and lots of drinks. Perhaps they'll even do without the rolls and the cheese."

If Aela hat planned to get me immersed into this cheery, comfortable and utterly chatter about everyday life in Jorrvaskr, she was successful. No one asked where I had been and what I had done, nobody asked about my future plans. If they assumed I'd return with them anyway or just accorded to leave me alone with these questions - I didn't know, but I was glad to leave all that behind, if only for a few hours.

It was a wonderful day and an even brighter evening. The warm water smelling of minerals and wet soil had an astonishing effect on me, not only couldn't I remember when I had was that clean the last time, it also relaxed my strained muscles as thoroughly as my mind. To float on the water for what felt like hours left me in a state where nothing, all my problems and sorrows, real or just made up, mattered any more. A giant could have herded his mammoths over me in that moment, I wouldn't have cared.

The Companions had prepared for everything, brought plenty of food and drink, bedrolls, warm clothes and even firewood to provide the greatest comfort such a night in the wilderness in early spring could have. Ria had even brought her flute, and after we had prepared the meal together and eaten in comfortable, companionable silence, she played for us. I listened to her, lying on my back and gazing up to the stars, hushed chatter around me and the warmth of the fire at my feet, and for the first time for weeks and months I felt completely, absolutely safe. Nothing bad would happen with these people around me.

But perhaps our fire was too bright or our laughter too loud, but the night was already far advanced and both moons stood high over the horizon when Aela suddenly froze. She held up one of her hands, silencing us, the other grabbing her bow.

"Whoever you are, get out or you'll regret it." Her voice sounded through the darkness around our fire, transporting exactly the challenge and threat it was meant to.

We all had our weapons lying close at hand, and although we were only clad in breeches, shirts and and warm cloaks, the four of us switched effortlessly into fighting mode. The hoarse laughter coming from the shabby blonde Nord and his Orc companion when they stepped into our circle of light confirmed our suspicions. Both men wore shady leather armour, as scruffy and untended as their unkempt, dirty wearers themselves. The stench of old sweat and stale mead quivered around them like a cloud and made me wretch.

"Good evening, ladies," the Nord said, his smug, toothgaping smirk showing that he didn't care a damn about the impression he made, "you seem quite merry tonight, and my friend here and I asked ourselves if you would mind to let us join into the… fun?" The Orc just grunted appreciatively.

Aela's expression transformed into the sweetest smile, her batted lashes hiding the predatory shine in her eyes only for those who didn't know her. She looked at each of us, telling us silently to play along, before she addressed the Nord.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we're not… geared to host any more guests tonight, Sir. You will have to look elsewhere for your fun. I'm sure there are plenty of nice places around."

The Orc frowned, but the other man just nudged him to keep him quiet and chuckled. His eyes were hungry and mean.

"But none as beautiful as this spot of yours. And my honour demands that five women all on their own out here in the wilderness need some protection. A protection we are willing to provide."

Aela glared at him, then cast her eyes down. She was such an image of utter shyness that Njada had to hide her snicker behind a cough. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it was foolish of us to come out here all alone."

I leant over to Tilma beside me and whispered in her ear. "You know where this will end?" She nodded. "When the fun starts, please get behind the tent. Those greatswords have a huge range."

"A little adventure, eh?" the Nord drawled with a false, reassuring smile. "Believe me, Milady... you're brave, but it's not safe out here."

Aela sighed demonstratively. "And your compensation for this protection will be just some… fun?"

Both men nodded vigorously. Aela stood up and looked at us, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "What do you think, girls? Shall we let them join?"

I looked up to her. "You're the boss, sister. Though I'd prefer they'd take a bath first."

"Only if you join me. You know, to scrub my back," the Nord bellowed, traces of frustration in his voice. Seemed he became tired of our little game.

But Aela grinned and pointed at me. "She's right. No bath, no fun. We'll keep watch over your ugly asses while you wash that grind away, the way you reek you haven't seen any soap for ages."

Her dismissive laughter drowned in the infuriated roar of the Orc. He unsheathed his sword and darted towards her, Ria coming to her aid while Njada and I took care of the Nord.

It wasn't even worth to be called a fight, those guys had no idea what they got themselves into. The Orc was dead in less a minute, killed by an arrow through his neck while he was busy with Ria, and when we pinned the Nord to the ground, Dragonbane at his throat, he was such a measly picture of helpless fury and fear it was disgusting. Aela spat him in the face.

"What did you think we are, a group of women alone out here, without _male protection_? A knitting club?" she snarled.

"Bitch," he spat out between gritted teeth, but his eyes flickered full of panic from face to face, "you'd kill a defenceless man?"

Her eyes, her facial expression, her whole posture became cold and hard like granite. She looked at me, saw the tension that made my hand holding the weapon tremble. "A bastard who thinks with his balls? Of course." I stopped to shake when I slit his throat.

Njada choked openly. "Disgusting. Let's get rid of the corpses, and then I need another bath."

We all joined her. Bathing in the moonlight had something strangely peaceful.


	5. Return

Njada greeted me only with a stern nod when I crawled out of my tent in the middle of the night, sitting on a dead log with her back to the glowing coals to avoid the blinding of the light while she kept her senses on the darkness around us, her axe and shield lying beside her. She was alert, keeping watch over us.

I couldn't sleep. Although I had a tent of my own, the noises of three sleeping people around me kept me awake, not used any more to so many so close. That, and a maelstrom of thoughts that whirled through my head.

I sighed deeply when I hunched down at the fire and put a kettle with water on the coals. The mixture of Tilma's herbal tea was crumbly and dry between my fingertips, dead leaves from last year, but the smell rising into my nose when I dropped them into the hot water was still fresh and invigorating.

The mountain of decisions had by no means become smaller during the last day. Perhaps it felt even larger, even more threatening, because the choices were so frighteningly one-sided. Why did everything seem so inevitable again?

Since... forever, I had been pushed around. People had always told me where to be and what to do. People always wanted something of me... my body, my life, my skill, my help.

Sometimes, they meant well. Sometimes, the decisions they made for me were indeed the best. Sometimes, there was indeed no other way. And sometimes, nothing else was reasonable.

But that didn't change the fact that all these decisions weren't _mine_. I hadn't _chosen_ to get my family killed and become a whore and neither to be Dragonborn, had become a warrior because I had to survive and a Companion because at one point, it seemed impossible to leave Jorrvaskr again. And to leave them had been a necessity again.

Once, Aela had said that this decision was final. But had it really been mine, or had others pushed me into it? Vilkas had manipulated me, shameless and obvious. From all of them, there had been pressure – gentle, but still.

And now, the Companions again.

When I brought a mug of tea over to Njada, she took it with a grateful half-smile, flexing her fingers around the warmth. No words were spoken when I sat down beside her, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, but she gave no indication that she minded my presence – four eyes saw more than two, and we had already fended off one unwelcome visit that night.

And I could always think best in the quiet of a nightly watch.

There was no denial that I was comfortable here, in this camp and with these women. That this day had given me the feeling that I had never stopped to belong to them, and to know that they had actively searched for me filled me with warmth.

And still, I felt pushed. Perhaps they had been too persuasive, too convincing. But again, there seemed to be no alternative - no reasonable one, at least.

Am eerie screech behind me startled me from my thoughts, both of us jumping to our feet, weapons drawn and ready to attack. When we realised that it was only a falcon sitting in a crippled tree by the pond, we were both slightly abashed. Njada sat down again with a lopsided grin, patting the wood beside her.

"Bloody bird," she muttered, and I snickered. She sat relaxed now, her elbows on her knees. "Did you know that some people hunt with them? The Redguards, I heard."

"Really? How?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. Amren told me. They can be trained, but only on prey that they'd hunt naturally anyway. And they never become tame."

That sounded fascinating. I liked falcons, their weightless elegance and deadliness. And they were Kynareth's bird. "I'd like to see that, one day."

She gave me a sidewards glance. "Hammerfell is right around the corner. Just gotta get over the border."

I snorted. "Didn't have much luck with that last time."

"No, you didn't." She cocked her head. "But you could. Not much holding you here, right?"

No. Only the fate of the world and a bunch of people who were a nuisance and a constant challenge with their demands and expectations. People who wanted me to rely on them, expected me to take their backing and support. People who only wanted my best. Because they knew everything about me, and because a couple of shield-siblings was always more than the sum of its parts.

She was one of them, this stern, often aggressive woman. "What would _you_ do, Njada?"

"Me?" She seemed surprised by my question, but then her face closed down, and her voice came out as a low growl. "I would hunt him down and kill him."

My breath caught. "Vilkas?"

She stared down at her feet. And then her gaze came up and locked on my face, with defiance and a darkness that was old and scarred and usually hidden deep inside of her. "I was seventeen," she said quietly, "and he was my uncle. The lover of my mother and my stepfather. My father died when I was too small to remember him, and he had taken us in." She let out a bitter grunt. "I caught him... on my little brother. And to keep me quiet, he took me too. I thought if I let him, he would leave the little one alone. But he didn't, and… when it became too bad, I killed him and ran away."

Stunned by this sudden, unexpected revelation, a groan escaped me. "Divines..."

"But life goes on. At least I could fight... and I swore to myself I would never again fail someone I had to protect. I found a job with a caravan and learned to survive on my own. One day, I came to Whiterun and stayed. Found a new home. And from there, I could even get back to my family."

She fell quiet, abruptly, as if everything that mattered had been said. Or as if she had already said too much. Only the sounds of the night were audible around us. Eat or get eaten, that was how life worked out there. But it didn't work with us humans.

"Why did you tell me all this?" I asked finally, hesitating.

She bared her teeth in a grin didn't reach her eyes, taxing and with a hint of her usual snide. "Perhaps... because someone has to tell you that you're not so special. But you're a Companion. Don't forsake us all just because one has turned out to be a bastard."

The mocking expression flashed into a full-grown grin when she saw me blush furiously. "I didn't mean to..."

She interrupted me harshly. "I get it, Qhouri. You have doubts, everyone would have. After all, _you_ have brought all this chaos to Jorrvaskr." She ignored my gasp. "And no one will blame you. You were just a trigger. But I'd like to know... what did Aela tell you? About... the state of the Companions?"

I answered carefully. "That it's hard. Too much work, not enough people who do it. She said that Kodlak and Farkas... don't care any more."

"Did she now? And did she also tell you that she doesn't care either?" The corners of her mouth quirked downwards, full of derision. "I tell you what is wrong with the Companions, Qhouri. The Circle is wrong. The Circle has failed. Kodlak and his damned studies... I mean, let him research his afterlife, okay? But he's still our Harbinger and not dead yet, and he cares a shit for the mess around him! That Farkas doesn't... can't even blame him. But instead to spend his time hunting and howling to the moons, he could go out and kill something and get paid for it. A boot up his ass, that's what he needs. That Skjor got himself killed... that was bad luck as much as stupidity. But Aela's vendetta against the Silver Hand now is _nothing_ but stupid and dangerous on top."

My dumbfounded expression made her snort. "Of course she didn't tell you about that."

"Do you mean... she lied to me?"

"Lied? No. She works hard, and she does her best. But she wears herself out, and she's never really there. Neither with her head nor with her heart, obsessed with her revenge." She breathed deeply. "This here... it was Ria's idea, and it was brilliant. But we had to force her to join us, and in the end she only came because of Wilhelm's message and the sidetrip to Ivarstead. If you hadn't agreed to come here... I think she would be razing a Silver Hand hideout now."

The silence between us was heavy and laden, mostly because I didn't know what to say. This was a totally different point of view on the Companions – dry and unsentimental, but nothing less depressing.

"Don't see how I can be of any help with all that," I said finally, shrugging helplessly.

She eyed me appraisingly. "You'll hate me for this, but you know what we need most?" I shook my head. "Someone like Vilkas. No, listen. Don't get me wrong, I hope Hircine chases him for eternity through the Hunting Grounds he hates so much. But let's be honest, he was the one who kept us going. Not only the organising stuff... he always pushed through, clenched his teeth and did what had to be done, no matter how hard. He saw the Companions as a whole, and he pulled everybody with him, even if we hated him for it."

I saw the truth in what she said, from her point of view, but I couldn't share it. "Hope you don't mind that I don't wish him back. Not even someone like him."

"Sure. But we've lost our focus. Especially the Circle, they all only see their own troubles and sorrows. It's understandable, but it tears us apart."

"You seem pretty focused."

She gave a short laughter. "Yeah, but I'd break my toes if I tried to kick Farkas in the ass. Or get a poisoned arrow between the eyes if I told Aela what to do. But you... you're Dragonborn. You just have to yell at them."

She nearly made me laugh. "I could never do that."

She became serious again. "You're proof that life goes on, Qhouri. You've clenched your teeth and pushed through and started to kill Dragons again. Just to see that it's possible... it would do us good."

* * *

"Okay, Qhouri, let's talk straight. What you're gonna do now?"

Ria had prepared breakfast for us all, to the huge discomfort of Tilma, but Aela had waited with this question until we had finished. When the others were busy packing, she drew me aside. I knew it would come, but it was awkward nevertheless.

She looked serious. "Will you come home with us?"

Come home. It sounded far too irreal to believe. But although I didn't sleep much that night, I felt more unwound than I did for weeks and months, because I had made up my mind.

The disappearance of Vilkas had changed everything. Nothing would have made me set a foot into Jorrvaskr if I had to face him there. But now it was different, and I refused to feel guilty about it. And the unexpected reunion with my shield-sisters had also appeased another gnawing fear I hadn't even been aware of: that I wouldn't be welcome any more, after the chaos I had caused.

Aela had made pretty clear what she expected from me, and Njada had done the same. It wasn't the same, there were troubles ahead and quarrels to fight out, but that wasn't the point. Both had been honest with me, hadn't painted the picture brighter than it was. And in both of them, I had found an unspoken understanding that let me hope that Jorrvaskr could become the home it once was again.

And I had to stop fretting, or Athis would kick my butt.

I managed a feeble smile. "Yep. Nowhere else I gotta be right now."

The broad grin on her face was reward enough.

"Girls, let's get going! I've just recruited another back to carry our stuff, so we'll be faster today!"

Ria's bright laughter came from inside the tent, and Njada looked up from the complicated task to pack the cooking gear as space-saving as possible. "Came to your senses, hm?" But her smile was friendly and sincere.

Aela set a fast pace to make the whole distance in a single day, but it was long dark when we finally crossed the bridge at Honningbrew, all of us quiet and tired. The torches of the guards patrolling the street and the lights of the city in the distance looked so familiar it choked me. Aela laid an arm around my shoulder. "Don't get cold feet now, sister. You'll see, the boys will be thrilled." She snorted out a laughter. "If they're sober enough to recognise you, that is."

They were. And not only sober. If we had thought we were the only ones with a surprise, we couldn't have been more wrong.

The first surprise waiting for us - and especially for Tilma - was the general state of the hall; it was tidied up and practically gleaming in a way I had never seen it in before. Everything was clean, everything was at his place, no empty bottles, no leftover food, no used dishes, the long tables were polished to perfection, the weapons mounted on the wall shone, the windows were cleaned, even the stone floor and the long carpet had been given a laundry.

The second surprise were Athis, Torvar, Vignar, Brill _and_ Eorlund sitting side by side by the fire, bathed and clad in clean clothes, looking expectantly at the door as if they were waiting for us. Only Kodlak and Farkas were missing. And the third surprise was the chaos that ensued immediately on our entry. Tilma squealed and nearly passed out with amazement and delight, Njada and Ria threw away their packs while Aela shoved me to the front of our group, but seeing eyes grow wide like saucers and jaws drop to the ground left me frozen and with tears in my eyes on top of the stairs.

I wanted to hide from the stares, but at least my first retreat strategy wasn't back out of the front door, but down to the living quarters. Of course that wasn't gonna happen - Athis captured me in an embrace I didn't think the slender man was even capable of. He held me close, then pushed me at arm's length and took a long look.

"That surprise tops ours by far. It's good to see you, Qhouri, but you look horrible." His red eyes sparkled.

Gods, I had missed that knowing smirk. "I know. 't was the first Aela told me," I muttered. Something hurt inside of me. I didn't know that joy and relief could hurt.

Njada had shouldered our knapsacks. "You should have seen her yesterday, before she's soaked for hours! Qhouri, I'm gonna take your pack downstairs, your old bunk is still free, okay?"

"My turn, greyskin, get out of the way!" Torvar's grin was boyish and light-hearted as always, and he was absolutely sober. Incredible. His embrace was bearlike.

"We missed you, shield-sister. No need to run away from us like that, you know?"

"I didn't run away from _you_, Torvar." My grin was sheepishly stuck to my face.

"I know. But it was stupid regardless. Good you came to your senses!"

Aela tried to bring some order into the turmoil. We were hungry, but the men had even prepared a meal for us, and it didn't take long that we all sat around the fire again. Even Tilma was forced to join us, the elderly woman had tears in her eyes.

"And I was afraid this would be a battle-field! You guys are crazy! And awesome!" she sobbed.

Torvar nodded gravely. "Oh yes, we are. This was worse than cleaning an ancient tomb of draugr, believe me. And I think it was the first time in history that the Companions have begged outsiders for help to get a job done." He grinned at Eorlund, but the smith only showed a faint, tired smile, not the booming laughter I expected.

"I've caused my share of devastation in this hall over the years, only fair that I helped to clean it up once." He pushed back his chair, stood up and looked into the round. "Gotta get home. I'll be back at the forge tomorrow, if you need something." He turned to me. "Come see me some time, Qhouri. I'd like to have a look at that sword of yours. If you don't mind." I nodded, and Vignar brought his brother to the door. I saw him pat his shoulder reassuringly, both men looking concerned and sad.

I leant over to Athis. "What's the matter with him? He's never been in a hurry to get home!"

"Long story," he whispered back, a sudden frown on his face. "His son is missing. Thorald, and Fralia freaks out and tells everybody it's the Battle-Born's fault. But nobody knows what happened."

Gods. Another disaster. I remembered the young man with the distinctive blue warpaint in the colours of the Stormcloaks. And I knew how his mother always fretted over her children, despite them all being grown up.

But I had been prepared that it wouldn't be all sunshine and roses in Jorrvaskr. "And where's Kodlak? And Farkas?"

His expression was concerned. "Kodlak didn't feel well, he went to bed early. Better not disturb him now. And Farkas… he's helped us today, but now he's probably out hunting, like most nights. Not much holding him here lately." He looked me in the eyes, with his intense blood-coloured gaze. "Don't get me wrong, you know how glad I am that you're here. But to him, it will mean even more. Much more."

I savoured this first evening back in Jorrvaskr, the familiar scents, everyone sitting in his place, the food and drinks, the banter I was so used to. But it was undeniable that some of the usual easy-going cheerfulness was missing from this improvised feast, the mood somehow subdued and chastened. And after Athis' honest words I realised that I didn't have really an idea what to expect here. There were wounds that had to heal slowly, in me and in the others. Wounds not least my actions had caused, even if nobody blamed me. I could only hope that we had already reached the point where it couldn't come worse.

But despite the growing tension in me the later it got, Farkas' return got me totally unprepared. Our round was smaller in the meantime, and I didn't react at first when the back door clapped - only Aela's wince made me look up.

He looked like a living dead, unwashed, shaggy hair tangled around a face smeared with warpaint and blood on sickly pale skin. Lifeless eyes stared at me, and for a single, endless moment of surprise I didn't even recognise him, so unfamiliar his features that another face layered above it, the one that looked the same and that I had seen last. For a single, endless moment his eyes met with mine, and something flared up in their depths. Goosebumps erupted on my arms and in my neck, my mind fogging with panic. And then he turned and was gone again.

I had to suck in a breath to free me from the shock of his appearance. All cheerfulness was gone at a moment's notice. I looked helplessly from face to face, but nobody said a word. Just Aela, finally.

"Go after him, Qhouri, please. Talk to him." I felt how it hurt her to see her shield-brother like this, but she still managed to give me an encouraging smile.

He sat on the bench right behind the door where the shadows were deepest, and although his silhouette tensed visibly when he sensed me coming, he didn't show any reaction when I took place beside him. Aela had said he wasn't himself any more, but I had been looking forward to seeing him anyway. But now… I didn't know what to say. How to act. The silence around us thickened like fog.

When he finally moved, grabbing my arm in a bruising grip, the other hand clenching like a vice around my chin and turning my face into the light of the torches, it was like an attack. He had to see the sudden alarm that made me jerk, but he didn't care, searched through my face as if he had never seen it before, never meeting my eyes and finally coming the rest on the scars on my cheek. The scars his brother had caused.

"You should never have come here."

He looked so forlorn and broken, so withdrawn into his own sorrow, all of a sudden I realised what Aela had meant. He had suffered more than anyone else. Perhaps even more than I.

To cut my bonds to Jorrvaskr had been my own decision. A necessary decision at the time, but still a decision. There had been a choice. But he never had a choice. He lost two of his shield-siblings and above all his twin in only a couple of weeks, and nobody had asked him how to live with it.

At least I had to try to get through to him.

I turned to him, grabbed his shoulders. "Look at me, Farkas. _Look at me!_" I forced him to look me in the eyes. His were dark from pain and despair… and still something else. Something warm. "If you mean that… if you really mean that I will be gone tomorrow, and nothing Aela can say will convince me otherwise. Look at me and say that again."

He slumped forwards, his shoulders trembling.

"He destroyed you. And he destroyed himself. And I wasn't there to stop him!"

I laid a hand between his shoulder-blades. "No, he didn't. He tried, and he was close, but he didn't." I stood up, knelt before him to see his face. No tears, only guilt and bottomless anguish. Never did I feel so helpless. "Farkas, please. Don't let this… there's nothing you could have done! No one could see what would happen."

He wailed. "But I should have known! He's my brother!"

And suddenly his arms were around me, pressing me against his chestplate in a breathtaking, desperate grip. "I missed you so much. I miss him so much. And I hate you because you left me behind, and I hate him because he left you behind. And I don't know how to look at your face every day, with those scars…"

I loosened his fingers from their grip, brought the necessary distance between us again. "I've the same problem with yours, you know? You look awfully like him, in case you missed that. We both can't change what has happened. My face is as it is. It's not pretty, but it's not your fault. _I_ left _you_ behind. Nothing is your fault."

He had buried his face in his hands, sat curled into himself, shutting me out. Of course he did. I was the reason that he had lost his twin. It didn't matter who's fault it was or if anyone could have done anything to prevent it… no _what ifs_ would change that he had lost his brother. It was all that mattered, all that remained from this whole disaster, and nothing I could say would reach him.

How selfish had it been to come here… and as a _surprise? _Nothing would be _better_ because I was here. For him, it made everything only worse, like a splinter in a festering wound.

The icy wind blowing through the courtyard crawled into my bones, and I shivered. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and held my voice as level as possible. "Okay. I won't fail you again. If you think I should leave, I will."

"Will you? Really?"

I nodded. Hesitating, but hardening myself. I wasn't even sure yet if I really wanted to stay or if I was just here because I had nowhere else to go. But I knew I couldn't live here as a constant reminder for him. I couldn't allow that Farkas suffered even more because of my selfishness.

The idea that we would deal with these things together, it had been alluring… but it was only an illusion.

And then I felt his hand under my chin, gentle this time, tilting my head up until I was forced to look into his face. He held my gaze, and there it was, the warmth and openness in his expression that I knew so well. It drew me in, and for a moment, I got the illusion we were close again, as if nothing had changed.

His guard went down, he let his walls crumple before my gaze, and all the pain, fear and despair, all the anger and frustration he had gone through during the last months washed over me through these silvery eyes. And all the love he felt, his affection and trust and unbreakable loyalty, for his family, for his brother… and for me. He showed me how it tore him apart.

His voice was only a whisper. "You sent me to Oblivion when you didn't come back, and I went there, like I told you. I want to come home now, Qhouri."

He still trusted me, let me see into the bottom of his heart, after all that had happened. But there was nothing I could give him in return. Nothing to bridge this gap between us.

I lowered my eyes from his face, ashamed.

"I don't have a home to come back to, Farkas. But yours is here. All of them are waiting for you."

I heard my own teeth grind, but there was nothing but emptiness. I couldn't. I couldn't suddenly start to deal with Vilkas, with the violence, the shame and the humiliation, just to make his brother feel better. I couldn't heal this discord in him, couldn't give him what he wanted… what he needed. I couldn't bring his brother back – not even in memory.

And I couldn't tear my own walls down, not again, not like he had done it. I couldn't, even if he deserved it. Even if it tore _me_ apart.

This was torture for us both. I shifted away from him and stood up. "You're right. I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry."

Aela waited for me when I entered the hall again. I just shook my head, and I knew she saw the sadness in my face, but I didn't dare to look at her.

"Sorry, Aela. I'll stay at the Mare. It's better for us all."

The Bannered Mare was still full and loud and boisterous when I entered my room, but I couldn't have slept anyway. Memories kept surfacing, unasked, unwanted and relentless, and sadness lay like a grey blanket over my mind. Farkas, how we had laughed with each other, yelled at each other, fought with each other. Vilkas during our first clash after the Harvest Festival and later, so many occasions when he had shown me his contempt, until his face became the last one I saw before I became unconscious in the shipwreck. They mingled with each other, so similar, impossible to tell them apart.

It was nearly morning when sleep finally claimed me, and it felt only like minutes when a loud knock on the door of my room startled me up again. My head throbbed with a dull pain while I fought with myself if to get up or to ignore the noise and finally freed myself blearily from the blanket. Another knock made me grunt impatiently while I slipped into tunic and pants. And when I finally opened the door, the man standing before me had already raised his fist for the next.

He had washed and changed into simple casual clothes, and now he looked even worse than the evening before. Bloodshot eyes with dark rings under them, deep lines carved into his features, his skin ashen. And an expression of such utter relief that I narrowed my eyes at him in confusion.

"Farkas?"

His arm fell limply to his side. "You're still here…"

"Of course I'm here," I snapped, "do you know what time it is?"

He looked puzzled, then scratched his neck bashfully and blushed. "I'm sorry…" he said, turned and went towards the stairs that led down to the main room.

Divines. What to do with this man? With this wreck of a man, now that he was here? For a moment, Njada's advice to kick his ass seemed the only reasonable choice.

Instead I went after him, grabbed his sleeve, dragged him into my room and pushed him down on a chair, then settled myself on the edge of the bed.

"Now I'm awake. What's the matter, Farkas?"

He stared at me from wide open eyes full of confusion, then lowered his gaze and studied his fingernails. I could see how he steeled himself before he started to speak. "Aela yelled at me tonight like never before," he said finally, with a sheepish, lopsided half-grin that didn't make it beyond his lips. "She called me childish and selfish and that I should get my shit together… and that it was a sodding pain to find you and make you come home, and if I don't fix this I don't need to come home again myself."

Apparently Aela had done the job and kicked his ass. I wasn't so sure if I liked the result. "You've nothing to fix. And Aela can't throw you out of Jorrvaskr."

"I can't throw you out either," he said lowly.

Damned. This was such a mess. _He_ was such a mess, the last I wanted was to make it worse.

I buried my forehead in my palms. "You don't have to," I said tiredly. "I'll speak with her. She'll… understand."

"No!" He shot up and started to pace through the room, from the window to the door and back. I watched him incredulously. No? No what? No, she won't understand? Or no, don't speak with her? Or no, this was a friggin' shitty idea right from the start? The throbbing in my head increased its rhythm.

I sighed. "Just tell me what you want, Farkas. Tell me, and I'll do it."

He stood with his back to me, hands propped on the window sill, stiff and tense. "Stay." His voice was strangely flat. "When I said you shouldn't have come here, I meant you could have spared yourself so much grief if you had let Athis just die. But you need a home, and Jorrvaskr is your home the same it's mine. I will leave you alone, but you shall know that my promise still holds, and when you need a shield-brother I will stand by your side."

He stared blankly out of the window.

It sounded memorised and forced, this speech. And from him, someone who always said what went through his mind… it wasn't much better than an outright lie. He didn't mean it and said it anyway, and it broke my heart. He was here and offered me to stay, and he still offered his help. What it cost him, after all the grief I had caused him, I couldn't even imagine.

And in sudden realisation I knew what he meant to me. That he was precious, far too precious to burden him with this, and that I couldn't bear to be a burden for him.

"You kept your promise. I don't want any more." I swallowed, tried to keep my voice from trembling. "I know we can't start over where we left, and I will leave you alone too. I'm sorry."

He turned slowly, looked at me with bewilderment. "What are you sorry for?"

"For this lousy surprise. For everything."

"You... are sorry for _me_."

I bit my lip and nodded. "Please, Farkas... I didn't want this. I didn't think this through, what it would mean for you. It'll be better if I just..."

But he stopped me with an outstretched hand, made two fast steps and dropped to his knees in front of me, his expression nearly angry.

"Shut up. Gods, just shut up." I did, holding my breath. And then his features lost their distant harshness, and for the first time, he looked at me. Really looked at me, not only at the scars. "You belong here, Qhouri. That you're back... I'm glad. Really." He clenched his hands in his lap. "Please... let's just try, okay? Let's just try to go on. It'll be better... now that you're back."

I stared at him. "You mean that?" I whispered.

He nodded, and for a moment, we only looked at each other. I found more grey at his temples and in his beard than the few silver hairs I remembered, more and deeper creases in his face. But the laughlines around his eyes were still there.

And then his hand came up and cupped my face, his thumb stroking along the scars and through the wetness on my cheek. "Don't cry," he said softly. "Please. Don't cry because of me." His lips quirked upwards, barely noticeable. "Or I'll have to cry too."

A sob escaped me and ruined the smile I tried to give him. I leant into his touch, laying my hand over his. "I missed you." It was easy to admit. And true, after all.

For a moment, his grip on my chin tightened. "I missed you too." And then he let me go and sat back on his haunches, chewing on the inside of his cheek and lowering his gaze. "I'm sorry... for last night. I tried to force you to give something I have no right to request. Of course we can't turn back time... it _was_ foolish and selfish, but I was so confused, and so happy to see you, and all the memories came back and I so hoped everything would fall back into place…"

I shook my head as I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. "Don't lie to me. You were _not_ happy to see me."

He grinned sheepishly. "Oh yes, I was, my brain just didn't get the message in time. And you know what happens when I'm so confused. I talk a shitload of rubbish and start to believe in it."

"I don't want any more confusion, Farkas," I said lowly, rubbing my temples.

"It'll be better... now." He narrowed his brows. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. Just a headache. Didn't sleep well."

"Or you're not used to Honningbrew mead any more." How I had missed that flashy white grin.

"Yeah. Sure."

He pushed himself to his feet. "You need breakfast. How about I get us something from Hulda?"

No. What I needed was a good night's sleep and less emotional turmoil. But it was sweet of him, and I gave him a smile. "You don't do breakfast, Farkas. And I have to see Kodlak." I dreaded that visit, and he could read it from my face.

"Far too early still to disturb him, and then it's time for Danica's visit," he said gently. "You're not in a rush, Qhouri. He knows you're here. And he knows you need some time."

I sighed. Perhaps he was right. "Okay. Perhaps... I'll just have a walk. I need some fresh air." I wanted to see the city and the people living here, stroll over the market place and get a taste of everyday, normal life. And I wanted to get out into the plains.

He cocked his head. "Mind if I join you?"

We had to get used to each other again. "No."

"Great. But breakfast first, you're far too thin."

Oh yeah, that was something else I had nearly forgotten... his very peculiar charm. I frowned at him. "Will all of you please stop telling me how horrible I look? Last time you had a comment about my weight, you said I was far too heavy." That was a happy day, our trip through the snow with Athis and Torvar.

He chuckled, remembering it as well. "I never said you're _too _heavy. Just _quite _heavy for a lady, but you're no lady anyway. Nothing wrong with you back then, especially not for me." He paused for a moment. "And I don't think you look horrible. Just… different. I'll get used to it."

This wasn't about my weight any more.

In the end we packed some snacks, fetched Snowback from the stables and wandered out into the plains, falling into our usual trot so naturally as if we had never travelled alone. And when we reached the Western Watchtower, we took the opportunity to rest, sheltered from the wind.

We didn't talk much, because there wasn't much to talk about. The past, the last months, they had to wait. First, we had to relearn to deal with each other before we could think of dealing with that load. And the times when we could just be together in comfortable silence had always been the best.

But I felt his gaze on me, pensive and curious. "What's the matter? Stop staring!"

He laughed, and blushed, and then he frowned.

"Never do that again, scare me like that, do you hear me? When Skjor died at least we knew what had happened, and when Vilkas vanished he was just gone, but not dead. But we didn't know anything about what had happened with you, and everybody kept telling me how impossible it was that you survived, but I didn't want to believe it, and that uncertainty was the worst…"

I felt guilt surge up. There was no accusation in his tone, just this grief he had never allowed himself and the relief that it was over. And I had no idea. I leant against his shoulder, like I always did it when we rested together.

"I'm sorry, Farkas. I didn't know… and I didn't think. Sorry."

He looked down on me. "Of course you didn't think. If you had thought and still not given any lifesign, then I'd be _really _angry."

And then he shifted, and I leant against his chest, his arms around me, his familiar scent rising into my nose. And suddenly, like a flash, I remembered how safety felt. Here, with him, I was safe. "I'm glad you're back, Qhouri," he mumbled. "We'll be fine. I promise."

I smiled sleepily, my eyes already closed. He had always made far too many promises. "I'd like that."

The last I heard before the sleepless night took its toll was his rumbling chuckle. Laugh at me all you want, Farkas, it's good to be back.


	6. A Night to Remember

"Hey." Farkas woke me with a nudge. "We should get back."

When the drowsiness faded from my mind and I opened my eyes, squinting against the midday sun, I jumped to my feet with a curse. I had slept deeper and more restful than I had for weeks - no wonder after the last nights I had spent nearly entirely awake. But I should have visited Kodlak hours ago.

And he shouldn't have let me sleep away half the day. I shot him an angry look, grabbed my cloak he had somehow draped over me and started to jog towards the city. Only to have him stop me with a firm grip to my wrist.

"Let me go," I said angrily, mostly with myself, "why didn't you wake me earlier?"

"You needed it," he said with a smile.

"No. I need to see Kodlak."

"He won't run away."

"Of course not," I snorted. "But..."

He took the cloak from my hand and draped it around my shoulders. "Why are you so nervous?"

I stared at him defiantly, ready to give a snotty answer when the edgy anxiety suddenly left me. Why did he ask when he knew it anyway? I was nervous because I didn't want to have this conversation with the Harbinger. I didn't want to see what the last months had done to him and didn't want to answer the questions he would have.

I felt a calloused finger under my chin. "Hey." Farkas' gaze was intense, a sadness lingering in its depths that was new. New to me. In him, it had grown for a long time. "He will be glad to see you. And he's still our Harbinger. You know him. No pressure." A small smile lit his face up, showing his affection for the old man. "You'll have a drink together, and everything will be alright."

"How's he doing?"

His face closed down. "Haven't seen much of him lately." He made a few steps towards the street, then turned back to me. "He struggles. He will be glad to see you."

I made a helpless gesture. We all struggled, I didn't need to hear it. And then he came back, a few fast steps until he stood before me. "He won't press you. And... it doesn't matter, you know? What he wants. You have to decide if you want to be here."

I shrugged, avoiding his eyes. "I've nowhere else to go. And… Aela said that I can make myself useful." I paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "And I missed you. But everything here…" Everything in Jorrvaskr reminded of Vilkas. It hurt us both, but it hurt us both for different reasons, and I didn't want to burden him with it.

"Qhouri." His voice sounded urgent, and I looked into his face. "Let's just go, okay?"

I exhaled slowly. Yeah. One step at a time, and now, I would speak with Kodlak. Side by side, we went along the road towards Whiterun.

Shortly before we reached the stables, I gave him a feeble grin. "I just wanna grab the first job and the first shield-sibling that comes my way and get to work."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Hey," I nudged my elbow into his side, "thank you."

He gave me a sidewards glance. "For what?"

"For waking me in the middle of the night."

He was quiet for a moment. "I'm a fool," he muttered finally.

"Yeah. And I'm a bitch, we know that already."

A tiny grin quirked his lips. It made me glad.

Farkas sat at the bar when I had gathered my pack from the room at the Mare, a bottle of ale before him, his forehead buried in his palms. I tipped him on the shoulder.

"You coming?"

He shook his head. "You go ahead. I'll see you later." His smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Alright." I wanted to say something else, his behaviour bothering me, but he had already turned away.

Kodlak sat in his usual, comfortable chair, the desk as always cluttered with books and notes. The door stood open, and I just knocked on the doorframe when I stood already before him, fumbling nervously with the laces of my tunic, at least as tense as the first time I had entered this room.

His sight terrified me. What had become of the aged, but still powerful warrior I knew? His clothes hung loosely around his body, the formerly impressive physique lost to bones and angles, gaunt features behind the grey beard and the warpaint showing the sharpness of chronic ailment. And his eyes were tired and weary.

A weariness that disappeared at once when he saw me. He had to recognise my shock but chose to ignore it, his face lighting up in a spontaneous, genuine smile as he stood up. No reserves in his welcome, and when he grabbed my wrist, held it a bit longer than necessary and I gave no sign of resistance, he pulled me into a hug, strong and warm like I was used to.

"It's good to see you, Qhouri." He held me at arm's length, his gaze scrutinising. "I hoped you would come."

I blushed. "Sorry for the delay, Harbinger."

"Not for that."

It became awkwardly quiet while we looked at each other. Marks of the last months, yes, lots of them. We couldn't acknowledge them. Not yet.

Finally he cleared his throat and took his former place again, beckoning me to take the opposite seat. He clasped his hands on top of the table.

We both started to speak at once. "Qhouri, I…" he started, and when I interrupted him, "Harbinger...", he pointed an accusatory index at me. "No. Stop that. You always called me Kodlak. Do that again, or I'll call you Dragonborn." And with that he stood up again, a bit laboured but with his usual firm resolution and threw his door open.

"Tilma!" he bellowed in an ear-splitting voice into the hallway and waited until the old woman scurried out of a sideroom. "Wine. The best we have. Now."

"But Harbinger," came her brittle voice from outside the room, "you know you shouldn't..."

"Stop harbingering me!" he barked. "Do I have to get it myself?"

"No! No, of course not!" She wrung her hands, giving me a pleading look. I could barely suppress a giggle, and it broke out when he sat again and mumbled something unintelligible into his beard. Impossible that he really called her an obnoxious hag.

"What?" He shot me a glowering look.

"Farkas predicted this."

"Farkas?"

"Yeah. He said that..."

"You've been with _Farkas_ today?"

"Yes." I gave him a confused look. Wouldn't tell him though that I slept away half the day under my shield-brother's watch.

His voice was low. "Did you... get along?"

I nodded, the outbreak of cheerfulness fading as fast as it had erupted. "Yes. Yes, we did." At least for the moment. No one could say what the future would bring, but a wordless smile bloomed over his face.

Tilma chose this moment to bring us the wine, a bottle and two goblets, and handed it over to Kodlak with a disapproving frown before she left again, shaking her head. He poured us the dark ruby liquid and handed one of the goblets to me. His expression told me not to interrupt him now as he sat quietly, circling the goblet between his fingers.

"I want to drink a toast to this day," he said finally, his voice strained. "I have made mistakes... terrible mistakes, and the last one was the worst. There are no excuses... and still you've come back." His hand shook slightly. "This is a good day, Qhouri. I want to drink to it with you."

He lifted his goblet, and when mine clanked with a soft metallic sound against it, a quiet calm settled over me. I had always felt safe in this room and in his presence, from our very first meeting to the last, when he had sent us out to save the boy. I had felt safe because he believed in me – from the very beginning. And he still did.

And this was what made Jorrvaskr home. It was safety. A place to come back to and to hide in when necessary. It were these massive stone walls down here and the comfort of the ancient wooden planks upstairs, it was food and drink and fire and stories, shelter and warmth. And most of all was it the Companions – this incredible family, their protection, strength and reliability just as much as their flaws, insanities and mistakes. And the knowledge that I belonged to them.

"We all made mistakes, Kodlak," I said lowly.

"Maybe. But you had to pay for them."

I shook my head. "Yes. But I'm not the only one."

He looked at me for a long time, as if he had to assess if I really meant it. Finally, he exhaled deeply, and the way he held his shoulders lost its rigidity. "Take your time to settle in, Qhouri. As much as you need."

I gave him a light smile. "I'll start working tomorrow."

"Eager, hm?"

I shrugged. "I've nothing else to do. Been busy lately... but at the moment, when it comes to the dragons I'm pretty much stuck."

Somehow I had the feeling I could tell him everything - about Alduin, about the Blades not able and the Greybeards not willing to help. About the prophecy that weighed on my shoulders like a mountain. Not now, though. No need to bring my troubles into Jorrvaskr. This break, this new beginning would do me good, and perhaps I'd find a new clue somewhere while working for the Companions.

"Yes, so I've heard," the old man said, smiling when he saw my astonishment. "That you were busy, I mean. Uncommon events, lots of ruckus in Solitude and Riften… rumours and gossip. Lots of gossip. You know that we're neutral in the war, but I like to know what's going on in the province. Seems the Thalmor had to put up with some… serious setbacks recently. Of course I asked myself who'd be crazy enough to mess with them so thoroughly. It wasn't hard to guess."

At first his obvious amusement was infectious, but then a certain thought gripped me with striking fear. What if my actions brought danger to Jorrvaskr? The Thalmor knew me, and they knew about my affiliations. What if they brought their revenge here?

But Kodlak appeased my concerns. "Don't worry, Qhouri. They won't dare it, not even the Thalmor. We're too respected, and we do have long-lasting connections to the Empire."

"I hope you're right. And I hope I can avoid them in the future."

He gave me a warm look. "Perhaps you'll tell me one day what you've done exactly to earn their ire."

"I will." I stood up, and he did the same, meeting me at the door. He took my hands in his, buried them between his palms.

"Perhaps, one day, we can talk about everything."

I lowered my gaze. "Perhaps." I left the room, and he closed the door silently behind me. I leant with my back against wall beside it, breathing deeply. Too much guilt and too much pain was unexpressed between us to make a promise. And to talk about it would change nothing.

Instead I threw myself into the work that piled up in the ledgers. Aela had been right, there was a huge back load, and it became worse daily. It seemed the fact that people had to wait for the Companion's services only made them more eager to hire us. And of course there were jobs who always took priority – when people were in danger, every lost trinket, hidden treasure, or obnoxious beast plague had to wait.

I went out and cleared bandit hideouts for the Jarl, found lost family heirlooms for wealthy citizens or forgotten artefacts for whimsical scholars. I cleared troll and bear dens, a spriggan-infested glade and a storage cellar where a nest of skeever had spent the winter propagating. We killed the occasional dragon and found the occasional word wall, usually deep in some long forgotten ruins. No use in searching out their burial grounds any more, now that I knew what happened there.

And I had my first encounter with the Falmer, horrible blind creatures with deformed bodies and twisted faces entirely void of empathy. Intelligent, yes, partly mer but more beast, with lethal poison dripping from their arrows and acid-spitting pet bugs. Njada and I fought them in a small, eerily beautiful cave not far from Whiterun that led surprisingly down into the buried remains of a Dwemer ruin. When Vignar recounted the history of the Snow Elves of old, their war against men and their corruption by the betrayal of the Dwemer, the tale was so fantastic I wasn't sure if I could believe him.

There were successes and failures, new scars and new experiences. Good ones too, even funny ones. Once Ria and I met a ghost on the road, which was uncommon all in itself, a ghost out in the open. Even more unusual was that it didn't attack, didn't even recognise us. The second weirdest thing was that he rode on a ghostly horse, and the most weirdest that he had no head. We followed him, curious and excited, just to see him vanish as if he had never been there when he reached an old, secluded graveyard. The draugr breaking out of its coffin as soon as we came close wore a beautiful, perfectly preserved ancient greatsword with a frost enchantment that Ria claimed happily for herself.

I tried to get back into the familiar routine, but it was hard to pretend that everything was back to normal when it clearly wasn't. We all coped differently with the changes, and we were careful with each other, trying to respect tempers and mood swings, but we couldn't ignore them, and we all knew what caused them.

And no one spoke about it. At least not with me. No one asked. Not how I had spent the winter, not what I had done before I met with Aela. On the one hand, I was glad about it. I had the feeling that these months were mine alone, no one had the right to pry into them. No one would take them from me. But too much was unspoken between us, and it showed.

The way they treated me with kid gloves drove me crazy. It wasn't even terribly obvious, only an abundance of small things that showed an inordinate protectiveness that had never been there before and was only weird. Torvar's obvious bad conscience when he came back from one of his nights at the Mare. The way they never left me alone when we were out of Jorrvaskr. How they sheltered me from others – clients and employers, people and strangers on the road or at the inns where we spent one night or another.

But it wasn't only about me. If they worried about me, I had at least as much reason to worry about them. Perhaps it wasn't so much that the Circle had failed, like Njada thought, but that there was simply not enough left of it.

Aela was fierce and disciplined whenever I worked with her, and she took more than her share of jobs. But every once in a while she vanished for days, never announcing beforehand where she went. But Skjor's death had at least taught her not to leave us entirely in the dark, and when a courier came with a note and a name on it, at least we knew that either another Silver Hand hideout was eradicated, or where we could retrieve her body if she didn't come back.

She always came back, often battered and bleeding, always silent and reticent, a flame of hatred and dark satisfaction burning in her eyes that no amount of blood could quench.

It was stupid, and it was dangerous. She didn't only bring herself into peril. And no one confronted her with it.

It was her way to cope.

And then there was Farkas. Or rather, he wasn't.

I didn't know what Aela had told him, but at least he worked again regularly, taking preferably the contracts that would lead him to Winterhold or into the Reach, as far from Whiterun as possible. And he didn't care who acted as his shield-sibling as long as it wasn't me. When he wasn't out on jobs, he often stayed away from the hall. And when we met in Jorrvaskr, during the rare occasions we were both at home at the same time, he went out of his way not to cross mine, spent even the nights away, and the dark circles under his eyes remained.

At first, I tried to deny it, couldn't believe that he really avoided me at all costs. I blamed the circumstances, that there was nothing fitting for us to go out together, that he was stressed with the manifold obligations he had, not only in Whiterun, but also in Morthal. Despite the growing frustration, I tried to act normal, tried to speak with him about his jobs and mine, even asked him about his daughters. But his answers were curt and meaningless, cutting me off as fast as possible. When he didn't have to, he didn't speak with me at all any more.

It hurt, the way he shunned me, more than I wanted to admit to myself. The guilt that welled up every time we met and he turned away, because I _knew_ why he was so distant. Why he couldn't stand me. The helplessness, because I could do nothing about it. And the disappointment that he hadn't meant what he said that first morning, that he didn't even try. But Aela had forced him, and we were both confused and scared back then. Nothing had become better, and we had nothing to bridge this abyss.

I couldn't confront him about it. Only once I tried, in a fleeting, spontaneous notion when I entered the back yard for a spar with Athis and caught him accidentally and alone, shredding a training dummy to splinters and rags of leather and straw with desperate aggressiveness. But he spun around before I could say a word, as if he had felt my eyes between his shoulder blades. For a single moment, his expression was soft, and he looked at me in the same way as he had done it that first morning in the Mare. And then his face shut down forcefully, narrowed brows and clenched jaws, and only aversion and sadness were left behind as he fled wordlessly into the Underforge.

Athis shifted behind me. "He's struggling," he said lowly. The hard knot in my chest that had grown with every rejection ached and made it hard to breathe, and I blinked frantically against the tears that gathered in my eyes.

"We're all struggling," I snapped, "no need to take it out on me. Let's get going." I drew Dragonbane and stormed down into the yard.

But of course he had every reason to take it out on me. I was the reason why he struggled, and he brought his point across every time we met. I didn't try to approach him again.

In the end, I did what we all did and fled the hall, the tension and the awkward speechlessness between us all, caused by too many things that couldn't be voiced. Working helped, it served as a distraction, and it was easier to bother about simple survival than to deal with the mess that was awaiting us in Jorrvaskr. And it was easier when there were just two of us – going along with the other whelps was still uncomplicated.

Until that one evening when all of us were miraculously at home at once, for the first time for weeks. Even Aela, even Farkas. Torvar and Ria tried to use the opportunity and gather everyone in the main hall, for a meal together and perhaps an improvised feast, and I joined them good-naturedly. We hadn't spent an evening together for far too long. Perhaps it would do us good.

But it didn't work. Farkas didn't leave his room at all, Aela grabbed her bow and vanished outside right after she had finished eating, and Njada mumbled something about how drinking with Andurs was more fun than with us before she left downstairs. Ria scowled in frustration.

"We gotta get out of here," she said stubbornly. "You go ahead, get us our table at the Mare. I'll come with the rest."

I was curious how she would force our reluctant shield-siblings to give up their self-imposed solitude - but somehow, she managed, and she wore a very complacent grin when we all had settled around the big round table that was ours by right and tradition.

The first round was on her tab. Probably a major part of her argumentation.

She had been right, getting out of the hall and together here in the cosy familiar atmosphere of the inn, meeting up and chatting with other patrons we knew just as well, did us good. At least it did me good, sitting between Ria and Athis and recounting our latest jobs, our tankards never empty. Njada made me hiccup with laughter with her scornful tale about a merchant who wanted a very special family heirloom silver goblet retrieved from some bandits who had raided his caravan. He got his goblet, and two dozen identical ones on top of it, and he was wasn't thrilled at all when she dropped the whole load unceremoniously on his desk.

We had fun, fuss-free and uncomplicated, and for the first time for weeks I could relax and unwind, felt again that sense of togetherness that I had missed so much.

When Torvar emptied his tankard with a long gulp and a content burp, I stood up to get the next round.

Ria touched my wrist, concern in her face. "Let me go, Qhouri."

I looked down on her, frowning. There was absolutely no reason why I shouldn't share the expenses of such an evening. Especially as I had made good money lately. We all had. "It's my turn. I'll be right back."

Standing at the bar and waiting for Hulda to receive my order, I watched the bustling life around me. Hrongar was there, the Jarl's brother, arguing drunkenly with Nazeem about some unimportant trifle. Adrianne and Ulfberth sat in a secluded corner, holding hands over the table. Uthgerd shot me a scornful look across the fire, as if it was my fault that she hadn't passed her trial with the Companions years ago. And Brenuin the beggar half stood at and half lay over the bar, arguing vocally with Hulda to get a whole bottle of ale for the single coin he had to offer.

I forged through the crowd and gave her a sign. "On my tap," I mouthed. She nodded relieved and shoved the bottle into Brenuin's hand. The way he grinned happily and pressed it to his chest like an infant as he jostled his way to the door made me laugh.

"Another round for us," I said to her, slipping on a stool and gesturing to our table, "and we need something to bite. Nothing fancy, just some bread and cheese."

"Of course, Companion." She smiled. "Got some boar roast as well. Want it?" She was already busy pouring ale and mead into tankards.

"Sounds lovely."

"That was nice," someone said. A Breton stood beside me, giving me an open, friendly smile.

I arched a questioning eyebrow. "What?"

"What you did for the beggar."

"Ah, Brenuin." I laughed. "He's a pain when he doesn't get what he wants. Easiest way to get rid of him."

"Still nice." He eyed me appraisingly. "Mead and ale, bread and cheese… I would've thought the Companions have a more exquisite taste."

"This is Whiterun, not Solitude, Sir," I grinned at him. "And we're simple people with simple tastes."

Brown eyes glittered mischievously as he turned fully to me, forcing me to lean my back against the bar. He stretched out his hand. "Sam," he said unpretentiously. "Pleased to meet you."

I took it, flashing him a smile. His handshake was firm and confident. I liked it. I liked to be approached and talked to by someone so normal and unpretentious. No one who hovered and patronised and made a fuss. This was a tavern, for Kyne's sake. This was what people did in a tavern. "Qhourian. The same."

"You look as if you have fun."

I shrugged, not really interested in his observations about us. "Not more or less than the rest of the rubble. Hulda's a good host."

"She is," he nodded, "even if her cellar leaves much to be desired." He cocked his head, and for a moment I wondered if his hair was really so tousled or if it was cut to look as if he had just crawled out of bed. Considering the fine quality of his clothes, the soft black leather of his gloves and the exquisite beauty of the intricate floral amulet around his neck and the matching silver rose he displayed on the ring finger of his right hand, I didn't believe he was that careless with his appearance. When someone bumped into him from behind, his arm pressed against my belly to steady himself. I tensed, but he straightened himself swiftly. "Pardon. Rubble, indeed," he chortled amused, his hand resting lightly on my knee. He stood so close now that I could feel the warmth of his body. It was cramped and crowded around us, after all.

Hulda had finally finished preparing a large platter laden with slices of fresh bread, cold meat and an enormous chunk of goat cheese for us, but before I could take it and free my place at the bar for another thirsty patron, Sam snatched a piece of bread and a bit of the roast for himself, holding it between two fingers and biting off delicately, his eyes never leaving mine. He gave me a boyish grin. "Thank you. I'm starving."

His bold cheekiness made me laugh. Somehow I had the feeling that he wanted to challenge me, something I couldn't stand for, and I pulled the dagger from my hip, cut off a slice of cheese and presented it to him on my flat palm. "Can't have that."

He took it gingerly, broke off a small piece and chewed demonstratively slow, his face scrunching up first into an expression of contemplation and then into such exaggerated pure bliss that I burst out laughing. "It's not _that_ good," I snickered.

"But it is," he drawled, his fingertips stroking lightly over my palm as he took the next piece. His other hand held suddenly a small bottle, and two glasses appeared in front of us on the bar. "And this will accompany it perfectly. May I return the favour?"

I nodded, eyeing him curiously. This guy was funny and full of surprises. He poured a translucent, amber liquid into the glasses and offered one of them to me. It smelled intoxicating, heavy and strong, of smoke and earth and traces of berries. His eyes never left my face, the grin becoming a lopsided smile.

"What is this?"

"It's strong. If you can take more than two, you're good," he said, as if it was explanation enough. Mischief sparkled in his eyes that had nearly the colour of the strange drink, the challenge I couldn't resist more than obvious. And then he took the platter from my hand and placed it back on the bar, closed both of my palms around the glass and covered them with his own. A strangely intimate gesture that made me hold my breath and a shiver run down my back. "Warm it up first. It becomes even better." He leant in even closer and whispered in my ear. "Everything is better when warmed up."

The fist that crushed into his jaw hurled him backwards, the brandy or whatever it was sloshing over my tunic. For a moment, I froze in shock. Farkas stood beside us, teeth bared in a feral snarl, a low, barely intelligible growl coming from deep inside his chest. "Hands off."

The punch should have broken his neck, but the Breton only stumbled back until he was caught by Hrongar's broad, steel-clad chest. For a moment, he looked absolutely dumbfounded, but then something flashed through his face. Something that was smug and amused and dangerous, far more dangerous than the huge warrior who went after him with his face twisted in fury.

This wasn't happening, was it? Why did people have to _make room_ when they anticipated a brawl instead to do something sensible? And why in Oblivion did Farkas just now discover his fucking protective streak, unasked and unwanted?

Before I could do anything but slip off my stool, Farkas had reached his opponent, eyes flashing, and reached out to close his fingers around Sam's throat. But the man simply swatted his arm away, his hand shooting forwards and his fist clenching into the neckline and laces of Farkas' tunic.

That alone shouldn't have been possible. And even less should it have happened that the simple touch, not even an attack, stopped the fuming warrior as if he was struck by lightning and brought him to his knees, the growl changing into a pained wail that broke up abruptly. He stared up into the face of the man who suddenly seemed to tower above him, panting for breath.

Aela forged her way through the crowd with brute force, Athis and Ria on her heels, but I was faster than her, tried to push between the men and what did by no means look like a common brawl – more like an execution.

But Sam simply grabbed my upper arm with his free hand and held me at distance while he pulled Farkas closer, haughty amusement in his face.

"Ah. Hircine's lapdog." He still wore that smug smile, and he spoke so quietly that only Farkas and I were able to understand him, shaking his head in mock sympathy. "That guy hasn't had fun since... forever." He turned his head to me. "A friend of yours?"

I stared at the Companion, clenching my teeth. Now I saw what was happening with him. It was the rose that caused him so much pain that it made him shiver, the silver ring on Sam's finger I had admired earlier. When he grabbed the collar of Farkas' shirt, it pressed into the skin of his chest, practically burned through it and left an angry, oozing lesion behind.

But Farkas didn't return my gaze, his eyes directed to the ground, his shoulders trembling slightly. He was in pain, and he deserved it. Why did he have to interfere _now_? Why did he have to ruin everything? I didn't even feel anger. Only disappointment and frustration, and the cold, hard knot in my chest coiled into an even tighter ache.

"No. No, he isn't," I said lowly, freeing myself from Sam's grip and taking a step backwards. "But don't kill him, please." Somehow I was entirely sure that he could, easily, with a flick of his hand.

I forced my way through the crowd without caring on whose feet I stepped, every desire for further revelry, intoxication or stupid challenges blown away. Only when I had reached the door, I heard a voice calling after me.

"Qhourian!" Sam stood at the bar as if nothing had happened, raising his glass to me. "Another time, okay?" He gave me a broad grin and downed it in a single gulp. From the corners of my eyes, I saw Aela lead Farkas away, an arm slung around his waist. It clenched my chest with a feeling of loss and relief all at once.

The others were loud when they came home, but I didn't sleep anyway, tossing and turning and cursing at the blankets that kept tangling around me. Only when a multitude of heavy steps came finally down the stairs to the living quarters, I forced myself to lie still, my back to the door, eyes pressed shut.

My efforts to feign sleep were futile, though. Of course they were when Aela stood before me, arms crossed over her chest. Damned senses of hers.

"We gotta talk," she said curtly. "Get up." Impossible to ignore Aela the Huntress, and even less to defy her. I didn't even try.

She shoved a bottle of mead into my hand and beckoned me to take place on the single chair in her room as soon as I entered. My suspicion even grew when Athis came in after me, closed the door and leant against it, his face unusually serious.

"You did wrong by him tonight," Aela said bluntly.

I knew at once who she meant, and I didn't believe my ears. "_I_ did wrong by _Farkas_?"

"Yeah. Seriously."

Slowly, I put the bottle back on the table, stood up and went to the door. "I don't have to put up with that nonsense," I pressed through gritted teeth.

"It's no nonsense. You hurt him, and I want you to make it right."

I spun around sharply. "You got that wrong, Aela." The anger and frustration that had simmered for weeks now finally boiled over. "It's not possible to hurt someone who pretends I don't even exist. Who hasn't spoken a single word with me for weeks. Who gets sick when he only sees me from afar."

She raked her hands through her hair, but it was Athis who answered for her. "You have no idea what happened tonight, do you?" I gave him an incredulous look. Why did this sound like a fucking interrogation?

"I know very well what happened," I snapped. "For once, I had fun. For once, there was someone who just wanted to have fun too. No fuss, no worry, no _fucking protectiveness_. Just a lousy drink. And then that jerk," I pointed at the door, "thinks he has to punch him to Oblivion. For exactly no godsdamned reason!"

The exchanged a look, and Athis couldn't suppress a snicker while Aela bit her lip to remain earnest.

"What?" I barked. This was ridiculous. And their amusement was totally uncalled for.

Athis shook his head, smirking. "Should we tell her?"

"Yeah," Aela chuckled, "Farkas tried to punch him to Oblivion. And it would have worked with everyone else, we all know that. That fist is of iron. But your precious funny Sam guy didn't even sport a bruise. Didn't that make you suspicious?"

I gaped at her, speechless. Sam's unscathed reaction to that hit _had_ made me suspicious... for the fraction of a second. As if I had time to care for injuries when there were none.

"Gimme your necklace, please."

My hand went to my throat. "Why?"

She threw up her hands impatiently. "Just give it to me."

When I handed it over to her, she eyed it with obvious disdain. "Silver," she muttered, but then she pulled herself together. "Look at this." I tensed when she fastened it around her neck. Athis watched her just as keenly as I waited for the bruise to form.

But nothing happened, nothing but a slight shudder of disgust that went through her body. She took it off hurriedly and gave it back to me.

"Silver does nothing to us as long as it doesn't get in contact with our blood. That hurts, yes, and it can easily kill us. But this here, jewellery and such... it's not pleasant, but it doesn't harm us." She swallowed. "That ring... Farkas will keep a scar from that wound, you know? It was silver, but it was also something else. Magic."

I felt blood rush to my cheeks, suddenly nervous. "Could you get to the point?" I asked lowly.

"He didn't smell human, Qhouri," Aela said calmly. "That was the first hint. And he knew at once about Farkas'... bond with Hircine. We suspect... well, we think that guy you had so much fun with tonight was a Daedra. A Daedric Prince."

"Sanguine, to be precise. Looking for a victim for his next prank," Athis chimed in.

"Sanguine?"

He nodded, his face deadly serious. "Yeah. The Prince of hedonism and debauchery. Patron of brothels and whores. The rose is his trademark, and he loves to... play with people."

Athis as a Dunmer knew probably more about the Daedra than anyone of us, including Vignar. And now he seemed terrifyingly confident about his assumption.

Suddenly, I felt dizzy, and I dropped down heavily on the edge of Aela's bed and buried my face in my hands, all anger washed away by this revelation. A Daedric Prince, and I had been naïve enough to stumble directly into his trap. Naïve and stupid. Who knew what kind of concoction he was going to instill into me.

Soft steps crossed the room, I felt a firm hand on my shoulder and the door clapped, and then Athis was gone and Aela sat down beside me, slinging an arm around me.

"It's okay," she said softly, "nothing happened."

I took a deep breath. Yeah, nothing had happened. But only because someone had had my back. Someone of whom I had expected it least.

"Why did he do that?" I whispered, leaning my head against her shoulder. "I mean... he hates me. Vilkas is gone because of me. I mean... he should be glad if I end up as a divine plaything. And now... he gets himself hurt? For me?"

A low chuckle reached my ear. "He wasn't aware that he was about to punch a Daedra when he did it," she said. "It was just... you know him. He doesn't _think_ in situations like that. It's his instincts, he saw you in danger and acted."

"And now he regrets it." I lifted my head. "I can never make up for that, Aela."

She shook her head with a gentle smile. "You've always been a good team, Qhouri. It would be a shame to give that up... for us all, and most of all for you both."

"But what can I do? He doesn't even speak with me!"

"Try it. At least... tell him you know what he did tonight." The heel of her palm rubbed soothingly over the stiff muscles of my shoulder. "He doesn't hate you, Qhouri. It's just... he's lost. He's struggling, with you, with himself, with everything. You could help him, you know?"

"I'd just make everything worse. I already did."

"No. I think... you can only get through this together. Perhaps you can even help each other."

I groaned desperately. We were both struggling. I kept myself occupied and distracted all the time and at all costs for a reason, and he couldn't stand me for the same. He was a mess, and I was as well. And I feared it would only get worse if we threw it together.

Not that he wanted, he had made that clear enough. But Aela was right. At least I had to thank him.

"You think he's asleep? Right now?"

"Only if Tilma has given him something. He doesn't sleep much... not with the nightmares he has."

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. "Okay."

"He doesn't bite, Qhouri."

I gave her a twisted grin. "Oh yes, he does."

She gave a short laughter and opened the door for me. "You should get some rest too. Kodlak wants to see us tomorrow," she said casually.

My breath hitched, and I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "Kodlak? Why? And who is _we_?"

"Farkas, me and you. And no, I don't know what it's about."

Gods. I had barely seen our Harbinger since I was back and not spoken more than three sentences with him. What did he want now?

"You could have told me tomorrow, you know?"

"You think too much, Qhouri." Her grin was cheeky.

No, I didn't. Or I couldn't help it. Far too many thoughts whirled through my head when she had closed her door behind me, and for a moment I was tempted to turn around the corner and vanish into the dormitory. And when I finally knocked on Farkas' door, cautiously not to wake him if he slept but loud enough not to be missed if he was awake, I was proud of myself.

But nothing moved behind the door as I stood outside, anxious and nervous. Perhaps he really slept. Perhaps he wasn't here at all, had already left Jorrvaskr again. Or, perhaps and most probable, he knew that I was here and simply ignored me, like he had done it for so long.

After some endless minutes standing in front of the silent door, I turned away with a sigh of defeat. I couldn't force him. Perhaps I'd just write him a note. Perhaps I'd just move to the inn to reduce our necessary interaction to a minimum. I could easily afford it with all the work I did, and I'd have a room for myself. And then that morning in the Mare came back to my mind, when I wanted so much to make things right with him that I believed him _although_ he told me that Aela had forced him to come.

I still wanted it so much. I still would believe him, but he didn't even lie to me any more. Angry with myself, I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

"Qhouri." The voice in my back was rough and strained, I hadn't heard the door open. When I turned slowly, he stood before me, his hand clenched around the handle. He was clad only in lose pants, the wound on his chest untreated except a thick coating of healing salve, red and raw like an accusation.

For a moment, we only stared at each other. There was anger in his expression and exhaustion, tightly guarded cautiousness and the omnipresent sadness. "What's the matter?"

"I'm sorry." My voice shook, and I stumbled over my own tongue. "I didn't want to wake you. Aela and Athis told me what has happened tonight... about Sanguine and why you got hurt so badly and I didn't want that and... I want to thank you. I'm a fool. Thank you. And I'm sorry." I babbled, unable to think straight, my cheeks burning.

He rubbed tiredly his palm over his face, and then he made a step backwards and held the door open. "Would you come in?"

I nodded slowly. When I stood in the doorway, I held my breath in surprise. I knew his room well, dominated by the massive bar that didn't leave much room for anything else, and it had always been chaotic. Cosy, but chaotic. Now it was tidied up to the last titbit, no spare clothes or armour parts, potions or weapons lying around, some new shelves on the wall, no dirty dishes and empty bottles on the bar or beside the bed. When he caught my surprised look, he shrugged sheepishly and pulled a chair from a corner.

I preferred to stand though, with my back against the door. He leant against the bar, and it became awkwardly quiet.

"I didn't want this," he muttered finally. "I didn't want to make you cry."

Slowly, I lifted my head. If all it took were some tears... this was something _I_ didn't want. I didn't want his pity, and I was far too touchy lately anyway. I straightened myself. "It's nothing. I'm just tired. And... I just wanted to get that off my chest. Really. I was a fool tonight."

"No!" He raked his hand nervously through his hair. "Yes. Yes, you were, but I was worse. Please, Qhouri... I didn't want this. I hurt you, and... when he asked you tonight if I was a friend of yours and you said no..." A groan broke from his chest. "Can we try this again? A fresh start?"

I stared incredulously at him. A fresh start? Now, out of the blue, and just because he had caught me crying? I laughed bitterly, my hands clenching into fists. "You said that already once, and it was a lie. And now again? Just because I shed a few tears?"

"I didn't lie," he whispered.

"Perhaps you didn't. But it didn't take long until you changed your mind."

"Please... I didn't want this. I didn't want to hurt you. You seemed to be fine, and I thought it would be easier if we... every time I see you, I see what he has done to you. What he has become. And every time you see me..." His voice trailed off. He looked so helpless and forlorn... something broke in me. He didn't have the right to look at me like that. He didn't have the right to ask _me_ for help.

"I know what you thought, Farkas," I said harshly. "I'm not stupid. You thought it would be easier _for you_. And you know what? Every time I see you, I feel guilty because you're such a wreck. I feel guilty because you were my friend once, I trusted you with my life, you were the one who always made me laugh and feel safe and I missed you so much. It hurts me to see you like this and to know that it's my fault. But don't pretend you ignored me for weeks to do _me_ a favour. You're a wreck not because of me, but because your brother is a bastard and a rapist and you can't live with that."

He stared at me from wide open eyes as I talked myself into a rage, blinding fury that had grown for so long and burst forth now. "You're searching for a fucking reason, aren't you? Anything that explains it. Anything that explains _him_. I can give you a reason, Farkas. I gave him plenty of reasons. When he asked me if I fucked you that night I made him believe that I did, because that question alone was _sick_ and I knew he'd hate the mere thought that I desecrated his precious brother. And yes, I called him a dumbass and a coward because he didn't change to save the boy. It would have been reasonable, even Kodlak told him so, but he rather sacrificed that life than to break his fucking principles!"

I made a step towards him and punched him in the chest, blind with tears and from the images of that fight and death and Vilkas on me that whirled through my head and _hurt_. "I gave him plenty of reasons," I yelled at him. "Is this what you want? Is it reason enough to rape me and leave me to die? Is it better now?"

And then my legs buckled under me, I fell to my knees and curled myself into a ball, tears and snot smeared over my face. "I shouldn't feel guilty for you," I whispered, shivering and crying. I wanted to hide, from myself and from him. "I shouldn't. What he did was wrong. It's not my fault."

It became quiet. Deadly quiet, nothing left that held me, only my pulse roaring in my ears and the breath that hurt when it finally came. My mind ran in circles and screamed at me – it's not my fault, not my fault, reasons enough, not guilty. _Not my fault._

And then there was a trembling body against mine and hands on my shoulders, on my skin, holding me tight, large and calloused. I screamed and shouted and Farkas flew against the wall, and the door crashed open and Aela stood in the room and yelled at me and Farkas yelled at her and the door slammed shut and she was gone again.

The taste of copper filled my mouth, my lip bitten open. It didn't stop the tears or the raw aching in my throat, and it didn't stop the guilt or the loneliness.

I didn't understand them. I didn't want this. It hurt so much.

And then warm wetness touched my face, the cloth rough and soothing and smelling of Tilma's curd soup. It rubbed the remains of my warpaint off my face, stubborn and thorough, and the mess of too much crying, the bloody spit in the corners of my mouth and the pain behind my eyes. And there was a voice, deep and rumbling, humming a few notes. I listened, but there were no words and no melody, just a simple, meaningless sound that laid itself over my senses, like the covers that were draped over my body, spending warmth.

When the images came back, late in the night and in the darkness of barely glimmering coals, someone was there to hold on to, the smell of oil and wolf and safety wiping them away. It told me that it wasn't my fault.

I woke lying on the floor in Farkas' room, stiff and sore but warm and with a clear head, wrapped into the blanket from his bed. He sat beside me, his back propped against the bar, healing salve and blood smeared over his chest, a dark bruise on his shoulder, his face stained with traces of tears and a large, angry bump on his temple. But he held my hand, fingers entangled, and slept peacefully.

I watched him until he stirred, bleary-eyed and confused, his free hand going to his head with a low groan. That lump looked painful, and his neck had to hurt horribly after sleeping in this position, the goosebumps on his arms proving that he was freezing. For a moment, the grip of his fingers on mine tightened, then he relaxed. He rolled his head along the wooden boards until he could look at me.

"Hey," he said.

I propped my head into my palm, but I didn't let him go. "Hey." A tiny smile curled his lips and made his eyes shine. It made me glad. "I need a drink," I said.

His grin flashed up, but he didn't move and he didn't let me go either. "Fabulous idea."


	7. Investigation

I didn't know how Farkas could take it so easy. He got injured because of my stupidity. I had shouted at him, had hurt him and accused him of selfishness and not to care. And still he had watched over me.

Before the silence between us could become awkward, he finally let go of me with a gentle brush of his thumb over the back of my hand and shifted first to his knees and then to his feet, rolling his shoulders. He winced slightly when the movement strained the dark purple bruise on his shoulder.

I winced with him, inwardly. And then he bowed behind the bar and came up with a dusty bottle of mead. He plopped it open and handed it to me.

"We gotta share. It's the last one."

"You really have your own stock down here?"

He shrugged. "Only for emergencies. Usually I prefer to drink upstairs."

I took a sip. It tasted a bit stale, but settled sweet and heavy in my empty stomach.

"And this is an emergency?"

He settled on top of the bar, his feet dangling beside me, and I reached the bottle up to him.

"Yeah," he said, and then he tilted his head in neck and drank, more than half of it in one go, his Adam's apple bobbing. When he handed it down to me again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his look was full of insecurity and doubt.

And all of a sudden, the events of the last night crushed with frightening clarity through my mind, every single word, Sam and Aela and Farkas, the yelling and shouting and crying. The pain. What I had said to him and that I had meant it. Every single word. And still, he had stayed with me and helped me through it.

No one knew our mutual despair better than we, impossible to hide from each other. A shiver ran down my spine, and I pulled my knees to my chest.

"What was that... with Aela, last night?"

"I've thrown her out. You woke all of Jorrvaskr with that shout, and she came and wanted to know if everything was okay. I told her not to ask stupid questions and that she should kindly leave us alone."

"Gods..." I buried my face in my palms.

He slipped down from his elevated seat until he sat beside me, tilted his head back against the wood and stared at the ceiling. We should really get up from the floor some time soon. And he should get dressed.

"I'm not searching for reasons, Qhouri," he said quietly. "All I wanna know is... if there's a chance that we get back what we had. Before him. Without him."

"There's no such thing like a fresh start, Farkas. That's just an illusion."

"I know that!" he flared up. "But... we should stop hurting each other. It's not our fault... not yours and not mine. We should stop feeling guilty."

It sounded so tempting and so easy. The strange lightness I had felt since I had woken up with my hand in his, it was back. "I reckon you don't want an apology?" I asked.

He turned his head to me. "You learn fast."

"Okay." He hadn't left much for me, but I emptied the rest of the bottle in one long gulp, put it away and let the golden light of my healing spell appear in my palm. "At least... let me?"

He eyed me warily, but then he turned his temple to me. "My head hurts. The least you can do."

A slight shudder went through him when the magic touched him and flowed through his body, but it did its work. I had had manifold opportunities to practise during the last weeks and felt much more comfortable healing others in the meantime.

Farkas relaxed under the treatment. "Feels good," he mumbled, his eyes closed, but when I had finished his head and his shoulder, the bruises fading to mere shadows on his skin, and went to the angry, oozing wound on his chest, he held my wrist in a gentle grip. "Don't even try. It won't work."

"Why not?" Of course I tried, and he was right. Nothing happened.

He shrugged. "Don't know. Probably because it's from Sanguine. At least the scar will be pretty."

I swallowed. "That could... no, would have ended badly. Who knows what he'd have done with me."

"Fortunately we'll never find out." And then he let go of my wrist and buried my hand between his palms. "I want it back, Qhouri. I wanna slay dragons with you and that you tell me what you've done with Delphine. I want you to laugh and feel safe with me again." His smile was soft. "I'll even climb up to High Hrothgar with you if necessary."

I gave him a feeble grin. "The Greybeards have thrown me out last time I've been there."

His eyes shot wide. "What? But Arngeir..."

"Arngeir is an obstinate, narrow-minded moron."

"Now I _really_ wanna know what happened." He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet, reaching out to help me up. He wasn't the only one with aching joints. "How about I find us something to do, and you tell me on the way?"

His eagerness made me smile. "Not gonna happen. We have a date with Kodlak, and I really need a bath before." I reeked, of stale mead and cold sweat.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that. Okay, I'll see you there."

He opened the door for me, but before I left, I turned once more to him. "I slept well tonight, Farkas. It felt... safe. Thank you." His smile was like a sunrise.

I was nervous when I entered Kodlak's quarters. Whatever he wanted, it had to be something grave. I had never been invited to one of the Circle's meetings before, and that the others were already waiting and I had to ignore Aela's curious look only made it worse.

He offered me a chair and came unpretentiously to the point.

"Eorlund and Fralia have been here a few days ago. They've asked us for help."

"Because of Thorald," Aela said tersely, and Kodlak nodded affirmatively.

"Yes. They're at the end of their tether. Eorlund knows of course that this is a delicate matter. If what everybody believes is true and he vanished because he was a supporter of the rebellion, it's entirely against our habit to get involved. No politics. But they're desperate, especially Fralia. She won't believe that he's dead... no matter how many facts speaks against it. He's gone for weeks now, after all."

"And so you promised them to help," Aela said matter-of-factly.

Kodlak shook his head gravely. "No. I told them I'd consult with you." He looked from face to face and raked with his hand through the thick mane of his hair, a rare gesture of nervousness from him. I didn't know what to say, had still no idea why I was here at all.

He continued. "The problem is, if what _I_ believe is true we have a much larger problem than anyone anticipated and even more reason to keep our heads down. And at the same time the best reason of all not to leave the Grey-Manes hanging."

"What are you talking about?" came Farkas voice from behind me where he leant against the wall.

Kodlak took a rasping breath. "It's unlikely that he was simply killed by bandits or wildlife. He vanished on the road from here to Riverwood. It's guarded, and someone would have found his corpse in the meantime. But if he was really taken because of his affiliation with the Stormcloaks, it would mean the Legion has him. Only that they haven't. They're nothing but organised, and if he was an Imperial prisoner, there would be information about it. They keep _lists_, after all." He gave me a twisted grin.

"How do you know they don't have him?" Aela asked.

"I still have some old acquaintances in the Legion." Kodlak shrugged. "That leaves only one conclusion. We know Thorald was - is – an open supporter of the Stormcloaks. But, not surprisingly, he's also a worshipper of Talos."

We all knew where this went, and an uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. "Fralia told me he wore an Amulet of Talos. She was mad about it, told him to take it off and not bring himself into danger and that he refused, stubborn boy. If he was caught with it by the wrong people, we know where he has ended."

I groaned. "Thalmor."

"Exactly. And that's why I've asked you to come, Qhouri. You're quasi our resident Thalmor expert." He sighed deeply, lines of worry in his face. "We can't let them hanging, but we have our principles... whatever we do, it will not be an official Companions mission."

"What happens with Thalmor prisoners?" Farkas asked bluntly.

I answered his question. Delphine had given me an extensive briefing, after all. "They act entirely independent from the Empire, even if they're only here to enforce the White Gold Concordat and especially the Talos ban. I've seen one of their prisons… and they know how to break people. I'm sure they have more of these facilities scattered over Skyrim."

Kodlak nodded gravely. "Probably, yes. In the end they do what they want, and if we're not careful, we can put ourselves into a serious tight spot here. And not only because of Thorald." When he met our incomprehensive faces, he narrowed his brows in concern. "Thorald isn't a simple miner or farmer no one knows and no one misses. His father is the best smith in Skyrim, and his uncle is one of Ulfric Stormcloak's oldest friends and staunchest supporters. And he comes from Whiterun, the only hold that openly defies the Talos ban without being part of the rebellion. They would love to get some leverage against the Grey-Manes as much as against Balgruuf."

"You think the Battle-Borns have their hands in this?" I asked.

"Not sure, but possible. No idea how far Olfrid would go to score off the Grey-Manes, but he's so bone-headed in his blind allegiance to the Empire... it's a pity, really. But _if_ they have something to do with it, it should be possible to find it out. If not... we have to search elsewhere."

Aela groaned lowly. "You really think this is a good idea? That we get involved into this?"

"No, I'm not, Aela," Kodlak answered honestly. "But we have to do something. Who else could? Vignar is one of us, and we'd be nothing without Eorlund."

Aela nodded slowly, but she looked decidedly unhappy.

He searched my eyes. "Qhouri... I had hoped you'd take this over. Perhaps... well, the Dragonborn asking inappropriate questions may be less suspicious than one of us. And you're not inexperienced in investigating Thalmor activities, after all."

"What? You are not?" Farkas blurted out.

I gave him a small smile and nodded. "I'll speak with Eorlund and Fralia for a start. And I'll keep my head down."

Kodlak looked relieved. "Thank you. And... if you find something out and you need a shield-sibling... I won't tell you with whom to work. But I'd prefer this conversation wouldn't leave this room."

* * *

"No, you won't join me!" I laughed at Farkas' impertinence as he stood before me, disappointment in his face. It didn't take much and he'd stomp his foot like a three-year-old.

"But why not?"

I grinned and lowered my voice. "This is about _girl's stuff_, Farkas. You know, women among themselves... believe me, you don't wanna witness that. It would damage you beyond repair."

He scowled unhappily, more about my refusal to tell him what this was all about than about the teasing.

"I promise to get you into the action when there are some skulls to split. But now I won't even leave Whiterun."

The Grey-Manes had been overjoyed when I had visited them the evening before, full of thankfulness, nearly convinced that Thorald would be home soon now that the Companions had taken over. I hated to admit that we had no lead yet and to shatter their hopes, and in the end the lengthy chat I had with them revealed nothing I didn't already know. Nothing substantial, at least. Only Fralia's conviction that her son was still alive was so honest, so deep and unfaltering that I left them with an even stronger resolve to find out what happened with their son. Any certainty, even the worst, would be better than that.

The surprise came when I had left their house. A movement in the shadows between the door and the temple made me spin around, and I released a breath of relief when Olfina, the eldest of the Grey-Mane children, revealed herself and beckoned me over into a dark corner.

"I need to tell you something," she whispered hastily, "but not now, I've got to get back before mother misses me. Can you meet me tomorrow, at noon, in the temple?"

And this was where I was heading now. Without Farkas.

I had no idea how he did it, but since our talk he gave me the feeling that our companionship was nearly back to normal. Perhaps it was really just a matter of personal resolve. Stop thinking, stop blaming, stop hurting each other. He never cared about what others thought of him, and he didn't start now. That I had shouted at him, the events with Sanguine and my breakdown... he shrugged it off and gave no explanation, despite the obvious curiosity of our siblings. Eyes and mind on what lay in front of us instead of what we had left behind, and I could feel the relief in him when we shared a companionable bottle of ale after I came back from the Grey-Manes. And he promised not to leave Whiterun until we knew how to proceed further.

Olfina was already there when I entered the temple, and I convinced Danica swiftly to let us use her little office. The more privacy, the better, especially considering the young woman's obvious nervousness.

"You're searching for Thorald, aren't you? That's why you spoke with my parents?" I nodded. She certainly knew her mother's thoughts about the matter.

"I didn't want to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to overhear you… I think mother has gone a bit crazy over the loss of him. He's never made a secret of his belief that the Empire should be driven out of Skyrim completely, and honestly, we've all seen this coming. Feared it would come." Her eyes glittered moist. "But Ma is so convinced… perhaps something's really wrong. Perhaps he isn't dead. I'm not so sure any more, and I wanna help."

The woman was about my age, quite attractive with the ashblonde hair and the grey eyes she had inherited from her father, and I knew that many people wondered why she wasn't married yet. The few times I had met her, she made a strong and independent impression, and Eorlund was certainly not the kind of father who'd press her into a relationship she didn't want. But she still lived under the roof of her parents, and I wondered what she could know. If she had perhaps shared secrets with her brother that even their parents didn't know about.

I eyed her curiously. "If you know anything that would help us in our search I'd be most grateful, Olfina. At the moment we're still pretty much lost."

She hesitated. "No, don't get me wrong. I don't know anything about what happened to Thorald. But one thing's certain, if anyone knows anything about him, it must be the Battle-Borns. Gods, how I hate this war! And this stupid feud!"

I was more than sympathetic with her feelings. Both families nursed their old, long-established influence in the city, and both did so preferably on the expense of the other clan. Nobody ever thought about the chances they _and_ Whiterun could have if they worked together.

Olfina pulled herself together. "You must promise that you will tell nobody about the things I'm gonna tell you. It'd ruin me and help no one. Please?"

"Promised."

"Okay… the thing is, I had a… relationship with Jon Battle-Born." She took a deep breath and blushed slightly, ignoring my surprise. "It's over, not because I don't like him, or he doesn't like me, but because all hell would break lose if anyone got a catch about us. Especially _his_ family. But I'm certain, if you tell him that you know about us, he will tell you everything he knows about Thorald just to buy your secrecy. _If_ he knows something. Just don't tell him that you got it from me!"

Holy Kyne, what a mess. She was pitiable, suffering so first-hand under this enmity, and I thanked her honestly for this information. It had to be hard for her to reveal it in the first place, and to a near stranger like me. I'd do anything not to make her situation any worse, but it also provided me with a leverage to put some gentle pressure on the Battle-Borns. Or one of them, at least.

But first I had to return to Jorrvaskr. Aela sat entirely relaxed on the terrace above the training yard and watched her shield-siblings work. She eyed me curiously when I dropped down beside her.

"Will you ever tell me what happened?" She pointed at Farkas who was sparring with Athis. I could watch him fight for hours, time and time again amazed how he was nearly as fast as the lithe mer, even in heavy armour and with his much longer blade.

"No." I gave her an awkward grin as I fumbled the waterskin from my belt. The last gasps of winter could still send one or another snowstorm over the plains, but today the breeze from the south was outright gentle and balmy.

"At least you speak again. And he hasn't trained that vigorously for weeks, you know? Whatever you said to him, it looks as if it worked."

"Me?" I looked as innocently as possible. "I didn't say anything, Aela. Perhaps you should just yell at him more often?"

In the last possible moment, the object of our interest blocked an attack of Athis' whirling daggers, his own sword coming down in a fast, narrow arc, aimed for his shoulder and neck. Only that Athis wasn't there any more, had danced back and out of reach and tried to throw the much larger Nord off balance with a kick to his shield. Who yanked it away and grabbed Athis' ankle. In mere seconds, the whole duel had evolved from a spar to a brawl, strength and weight against flexible agility.

Aela laughed loudly, and Farkas turned to us, with Athis in a headlock and a faux scowl on his face. "Not funny," he growled, "little grey-skin here is obnoxious."

He probably didn't hold tight enough – if he did, he'd have broken Athis' neck – and the mer wiggled out of his grip and jumped on Farkas' back, legs around his waist, both arms clenching around his throat. "I'll show you obnoxious!" he declared triumphantly, not letting go until his victim started to sputter.

Farkas, together with his snickering burden, stumbled up the stairs towards us. "Shield-sisters! Help!" he panted, one hand held out pleadingly, the other trying to loosen Athis' grip on his neck. The two men were a ridiculous sight, sweaty and dirty, warpaint smeared and full of dust.

Aela thought that too, obviously. She jumped up and backed off with a laughter. "No way! Not before you've taken a bath! Both of you!"

I intervened. "No! At least not Farkas. I need him exactly like he is."

She shot me a disbelieving look. "You sure, sister? That guy reeks worse than the bastard at the springs who wanted you to scrub his back!"

"Hehe. No, I need him for a certain purpose, and for that he's perfect right now."

"Now I have nasty images in my head. No, I don't wanna know what kind of _purpose_ that could be!" Aela vanished giggling into the hall, followed by Athis who gave me a playful pat on his way in, and I turned to Farkas whose grin had suddenly turned into a concerned frown.

"What was that about you scrubbing some backs?"

I shrugged. "Just some… uninvited guests we had in the Marches. They wanted some _fun_… and we wanted them to take a bath before joining. One of them asked me to help him." I grinned. "I did, but it turned out to be a bit rougher than he anticipated."

He grabbed me at the elbow and led me to one of the tables, his face deadly serious, his eyes full of worry. "Qhouri, that's not funny. Did he scare you?"

His reaction surprised me, and I wondered why he was so agitated. He should know that none of us was ever in danger. "No, he didn't. There were four of us! Don't you think we know how to deal with such filth? Even Tilma would've crushed his skull with a frying pan if necessary!"

Some of the anger left his face. "Sorry… of course you know how to deal with something like that. I just thought… oh, forget it."

Something dawned on me. "You thought I'd panic because of the kind of… fun they wanted?" I shook my head. "Farkas, there's a lot of things that scare me, but I can still distinguish between worthless vermin and men who are _really_ dangerous. As much as I know whom to trust and whom not."

He relaxed visibly and nodded. "Okay. You know what you're doing. So, what special purpose is that?"

I told him what I had found out so far and what Olfina had told me. I had promised her secrecy, but the secret was in good hands with him, and if our little plot yielded any results I'd need him anyway.

"And now, brother, I need you to look scary for Jon. No skulls to split yet, but do you think you can put on your most intimidating attitude and come with me?"

He looked positively disappointed. "Just _look_ scary? I'd prefer to _be_ scary! What do you think I train for?"

"No, just pretend for now. We don't want the whole Battle-Born clan come after the Companions. But if we get what we want from him, I'm pretty sure you can be scary as much as you want afterwards."

With him in tow I made my way down to the marketplace where our target usually loitered around. Perhaps looking for Olfina.

"There he is," I whispered to Farkas, "have your way with him and take him… behind the Warmaiden, nobody will disturb us there. But don't hurt him, I don't think he's really done anything wrong."

I watched the scene unfold for a moment. Jon Battle-Born was several inches smaller than Farkas and probably only half his weight, and although he was clad in iron armour and wore a sword at his side, he was obviously no fighter. In fact, I knew that he wished to go to the Bard's College and become a minstrel, and that he despised Mikael from the Bannered Mare and his frivolous ways with a passion that matched mine; for that alone I had to like him. He wasn't a bad man, just an involuntary participant in a conflict he probably didn't have any interest in, and I really wished he could find his luck the way he wanted to - but for now we needed him only as a source of information. It was to hope that he wouldn't show too much resistance.

I made my way to the clear spot behind Adrianne's smithy, and soon I heard footsteps, both men coming into view, the Companion roughly jostling the wannabe-bard into my direction. I would've been scared as well if I didn't know him - his huge stature in the massive steel armour and the dangerous looking greataxe he had strapped to his back only for this occasion, his hair a tangled, sweaty black mess, the deep frown, smeared warpaint, puckered brows and the deep growl were quite a display of intimidation. I had to suppress a snicker.

"Jon Battle-Born?"

"As if you didn't know me, Companion," the man sneered, trying in vain to get out of Farkas' iron grip around his neck. "What do you want? And why the hassle with your lapdog here?" Farkas only tightened his grasp, and slowly he forced his victim to his knees. I didn't mind, a little fear was always useful to loosen a tongue, but I didn't want to go too far.

"No need to break his neck, Farkas. Don't think he'll run away."

"Better safe than sorry," he growled, but he suppressed a grin, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He had far too much fun with this.

"Jon…," I smiled friendly at the young man. "Please excuse our rash approach, but we need your help. In fact, I think you're the only one who can help us."

"And what in Oblivion could the Stormcloak's lackeys need _my_ help with?" he spat.

Farkas clenched his fingers even tighter around his neck, causing a startled, pained yelp from the man. "The Companions are no one's lackeys, worm," he growled into his ear.

"You house that filth in your own hall!" he gave back. Stubborn. I grabbed his chin and forced him to look up to me. Now he was trapped between us.

"You wanna be careful with your accusations, Battle-Born," I said threateningly low. "Vignar is a veteran of the Imperial Legion of outstanding merits. He has seen things that a spoiled child like you can't even imagine." I shook my head in mock sympathy. "And I thought you could think for yourself, but all I hear is the bigotry of your father. A pity, really."

His eyes showed a hint of insecurity. "What do you want then?"

I let him go and made a step backwards, my arms crossed in front of my chest. "We're looking for someone, and I'm pretty sure you know where he is. Tell me, what do you know about the whereabouts of Thorald Grey-Mane?" The man blanched visibly, a first hint that he wasn't completely oblivious. I pressed further. "Don't even try to lie to me. I don't wanna hurt you. And Farkas… he hasn't split a skull for ages. It makes him nervous, you know?"

Farkas' amused grin didn't make it easier to keep my own intimidating composure. But Jon was more unrepentant than I would have given him credit for.

"All I know is that he was a bloody traitor who got himself killed," he scoffed. "Serves him right. I thought the Companions don't take sides? Why do you care?"

"Why we care is not your business, Jon," I said softly. "But perhaps it's of interest to you that his sister is devastated by the disappearance of her brother."

All of a sudden he practically deflated, all the artificial, indignant anger vanishing from his posture and expression. His eyes shot wide. "Olfina?"

"Yes, Olfina. I'm sure your father would be _very_ interested to hear about your little… fling. What do you think, how much would he like to learn that his spawn fraternises with the enemy? We all know that he's not exactly patient with _bloody traitors_."

All blood drained from his face, cold sweat suddenly pooling on his forehead. I could see him tremble in Farkas' grip. And it didn't need anything else to make him speak.

Perhaps it was the living and very real threat towering above him, the obvious fear of his father or honest frustration with the whole situation, but suddenly he talked as if his life depended on it. That was what we wanted him to think, of course, but he should have known that we wouldn't kill a citizen in broad daylight and inside the walls. But the words just tumbled out of him, he spoke without thinking, frustration, guilt, righteous anger and a good share of fear breaking forth.

He told us how he despised the war, how his father was a merciless tyrant with his thumb on everyone in the household and beyond, how he wanted nothing more than to get away, go to Solitude, join the College and start over with Olfina where no one knew them.

And he told us how outright idiotic the whole idea to take the Grey-Mane son captive had been right from the beginning, no matter if he was a Stormcloak, no matter if there had been instructions to deal a blow against the Grey-Manes. He didn't know who had given this order, but he knew how the whole affair had backfired when the Thalmor came for their captive. The Justiciar who had visited them in the dead of night hadn't been happy at all that the prisoner in question was only a younger son of the Grey-Mane clan. And now the Battle-Borns had their attention as well, and _nobody_ in his right mind wanted any attention of the Thalmor.

We let him speak, and when he became quiet, hanging boneless and desperate in Farkas' grip, the Companion yanked him up and slammed his knee painfully into his kidney. "Where did they take him?" he barked, disgust in his face, and now his threatening behaviour had nothing playful any more. He was as appalled as I how deep people would sink for a crumb of attention.

He told us. Thorald was held captive in Northwatch Keep, a former Imperial fort that served as a secret Thalmor prison now.

Fralia Grey-Mane had been right.

* * *

I leant against the doorframe of Kodlak's chambers and watched the men bending over the large map on his desk with a queasy feeling. A strange sense of unease and suspiciousness. It all felt too normal. We knew what we had to do and we would go out and do it, and although this was far from being a regular job, all this, all the planning and the preparations, felt far too ordinary.

It felt as if I was strung on a leash, a tension in the air no one would dare to admit. Or perhaps no one but me felt it. The way Kodlak had congratulated us to our success – "Excellent job, you two, really!" he had exclaimed, smiling broadly – and how Aela didn't even try to get involved, leaving no question who would get Thorald out of that prison, it left me itchy and irritable.

Why did it have to be Farkas and me? I hadn't worked with him for ages. We were barely on speaking terms again, and the way he seemingly shrugged off everything that stood between us – it felt forced and insincere, and it made me nervous.

And I wouldn't just put up with it. Too often had I ignored my gut feeling until it was too late.

"Farkas," I said briskly.

He looked over his shoulder, a deep frown on his face. "You should have a look here, Qhouri. The friggin' farthest corner of Skyrim they could find. It'll take us weeks to get there."

Yeah, that was exactly the problem. I ignored his lament for the moment. "You stocked up your emergency supplies?"

"Not yet, still gotta visit Arcadia. But there's time..." When he saw the resentment in my face, he narrowed his eyes. "You mean..."

I nodded curtly. "I need it. Now." I turned on my heels and marched towards his quarters, his steps heavily behind me.

Farkas vanished immediately behind his bar and brought forth two bottles, handing one of them to me. "What's the matter, Qhouri?"

I took a deep breath. "I wanna know if you think this is a good idea. You and me, on a journey of weeks."

His face closed down. "You'd rather go with Aela?"

"No!" I clenched my hands in front of me. "I don't know. _You_ could go with Aela! Why does everybody think it's a given that it has to be you and me?"

"Because Kodlak has assigned the job to you, and everybody knows we work fine together."

"Kodlak is lousy in assigning jobs." I regretted my words as soon as I had said them and his face scrunched up in pain. "Sorry. I didn't mean..." I felt my shoulders slump forward. I didn't know myself what I meant. Perhaps it was just the irrational feeling that everything got decided over my head.

He sighed deeply. "Should I get Aela, so we can ask her to take over?" he asked lowly. I heard the disappointment in his voice.

Yes, I thought. Let her take over, either for him or for me. It would be so much easier. But I couldn't say it out loud. "No. It's just... "

"You don't trust that it will work."

I raised my gaze to him. "Yeah. What is this, Farkas? Peace, or truce? I feel... like walking on thin ice, and you keep telling me that it will hold. But I can hear it crack." I shrugged helplessly. "I thought we'd clear Valtheim for a start. Or kill some trolls. Or... dunno. Something easy." Something that wouldn't tie us together and leave dependent on each other for such a long time. Something that would give us opportunity to get used to each other again.

"We don't need easy." Suddenly, there was this strange determination in his expression that was so characteristic for him. "I don't know what this is, Qhouri. More than a truce, I hope. Perhaps not yet peace... but we'll get there. We've always been a good team, and we'll work fine together. And everything else... we'll work it out. We always did."

"You think so?"

He looked at me for a moment, then put his bottle away and came around the bar until he stood before me. He raised his hands as if he wanted to lay them on my shoulders... or pull me into his arms. But then he let them fall to his side again.

"I'd go crazy if I didn't," he said quietly. There was so much in his face, confidence and a hint of insecurity, excitement and a plea... and something warm. Something that told me that he wouldn't let me down, and suddenly I felt like a fool for these silly, vague concerns that I carried around.

I let my forehead drop against his shoulder, and now his arms came around me, pulled me into a warm hug. "I just don't wanna fight with you again," I whispered into his chest.

His index tilted my head upwards. A small smile curled his lips. "I'd rather fight than repeat the last weeks. And we've fought before, Qhouri. I'm still a fool, and you're still a bitch. Some things don't change."

Somehow, he still managed to make me laugh. And of course he was right, running away would solve nothing. But I wanted stability, I wanted him to be the rock he had always been, strong and solid and reliable. I wanted back what we once had.

But we would have to work for it, both of us. He was willing and just waiting for me, and I didn't even know what I was afraid of.

I lifted my head. "Okay. I'll visit Arcadia and Elrindir and buy them out. And guess who'll carry all that stuff to the other end of Skyrim."

His grin flared up, boyish and cheerful. "A pleasure, sister."

After a brief visit to the apothecary and Elrindir's hunting store to stock up on arrows and every potion we could possibly need I wanted to get as much sleep as possible before we'd leave Whiterun before sunrise, but Athis interfered with my plans. He made an almost shy impression when he stopped me on the stairs down to the living quarters.

"You have a moment, Qhouri?" One look at him told me that sleep would have to wait, and I nodded and followed him without a further word out into the courtyard where we were undisturbed.

"You leave tomorrow, don't you? With Farkas?" Nothing in this hall remained secret for more than a few minutes, it seemed.

I nodded. "Yes, we're gonna do Kodlak a favour."

"Whatever you're up to, it will do you good. Both of you." But he didn't elaborate and became quiet, shifting uncomfortably on his bench.

"What's the matter, Athis? At the moment I can't tell you more… but I'll come back, you know?" My attempt to lighten up his mood failed miserably.

He scowled. "Of course you will. Farkas will carry you back if he has to." He took a deep breath. "No… I've something to confess. You'd never find out on your own, but… I can't keep this to myself any more, so I better tell you now."

I looked curiously. What could it be that made him that nervous?

"I just wanted to tell you… if you ever plan to disappear again, you need to find a new hiding place. Because I knew where you were, during the winter."

Seeing him blush, visible even through his dark skin and warpaint, I slowly grasped what he had said.

"You mean… you knew where I lived? And you told no one?" His nod left me speechless, and a shiver ran down my spine. I hadn't been alone, all this time. And not only didn't he reveal himself to me, but he also kept quiet to the others. "For Kyne's sake, why?"

He clenched his hands in his lap. "And make you run again, and I have to find you in Elsweyr next time?"

I grinned. This was, after all, pretty ironic.

He eyed my reaction with obvious relief. "It was an accident, honestly. I had to fetch something in Falkreath, and on my way back I remembered where you found me with that stupid bear. And I don't know why, but I made a short sidetrip through the forest and looked around for a bit and found your camp. And you. It's not hard to find an open fire in the middle of nowhere if you know what to look for."

"I must be a lousy hunter if I didn't notice you. Not even your tracks… And why didn't you come out and say hello? I would have… liked that."

"No, you wouldn't," he said sternly. "You weren't ready for any company, not even mine, and I didn't want to take the risk. Of course I wanted to drag you back home at first. Vilkas was gone, Skjor dead and Farkas a wreck, and you were in a horrible condition as well. But I knew it wasn't gonna happen, not that easily. You needed that time alone with yourself, and I knew that I couldn't force you, you'd have to come to your senses on your own. So I just kept an eye on you, to make sure you're okay."

"You looked out for me? Through the whole winter?"

He nodded. "Every few days, just to see if you were still alive. Of course you weren't _okay_, but that had to be enough. I'm a terrible shield-brother… the hardest was to keep quiet. I was in a lousy mood all these weeks. And… I couldn't take every job in and around Falkreath all on my own, that would have been too suspicious. So I had to tell Njada."

"And you both kept quiet and left me alone."

"Yep. 't was hard, believe me. But we thought it for the best."

We sat there for some minutes while I tried to digest what he had told me.

"Athis, you're insane. But you're right… I would have run again. I couldn't deal with you back then. I could hardly deal with myself."

His smile was unusually soft. "I know. Though you probably wouldn't have come far, injured and half-starved and weak as you were."

"It wasn't so bad. Snowback was there, after all." My breath hitched with sudden comprehension. "I always wondered… you brought him, didn't you?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Took him with me and let him run. He found you without problems. And that's not all, I'm afraid." His face showed a trace of his typical smirk. "When you didn't bother to get back into life - not necessarily back to Jorrvaskr, but at least somewhere I didn't have to fear constantly that I'd only find your naked bones next time - I knew I had to do something. And I sent you a friend, to give you a little push."

Now he grinned at my dumbfounded expression. "I didn't tell him who you are, just where to find you and that he should visit you. Accidentally, so to say. Did you really think a travelling bard leaves the safety of the streets in the deepest of winter and just happens to stumble over your camp somewhere in the middle of nowhere?"

"That weirdo Talsgar? He's a _friend_ of you?" Not that it really surprised me, Athis had all kinds of weird acquaintances.

He chuckled. "Well, not really a friend, but we travellers know each other, and he owes me. I saved him from a frost troll once. And he's always game for a bit of a crazy trip."

"Well, he did an awesome job. I found him at my fire one morning as if he belonged there, he had bewitched Snowback, and then he played that atrocious Dragonborn song until I cut his strings. Not much later I went dragon slaying again."

"That was the worst, Qhouri... when you were suddenly gone, without a trace. At least it didn't take long till we got the news about the dragon in Kynesgrove."

I had tears in my eyes when I looked at this mer who accepted me like I was, with all my insanities, and just held his hand over me when necessary. What could happen with friends like this?

"Are you mad at me?" His voice had lost its mirth.

"Mad at you? You're the best friend I could wish for. Why should I be mad at you?"

The relief shone from his eyes. "Then, please… could this remain our little secret? The others would dump me into the Skyforge if they knew."

I just nodded. In this, he had taken my side, and I'd never forget it.

"I need to get some sleep, Athis. Thank you for telling me."

"Safe travels, sister. Be careful, okay?"

"I will."


End file.
